INFANT CLASS SIZE PREJUDICE- YOU CAN WIN!

[custardpants]

I have just won an appeal and overcome the class size prejudice rule, based on inaccuracies on behalf of the council. i suggest to anyone out there, keep fighting you can win and get in contact with your local MP who can also work with you and give you information on how to approach these things. County Councils will tell you there is no point appealing and will say no appeals get upheld on the infant class size prejudice rule. please keep hope, if you have the right information and tackle in the right way you CAN win. I WANTED TO MAKE OTHER PARENTS AWARE THAT IT IS NOT A POINTLESS BATTLE- YOU CAN BEAT THE ADMISSIONS AUTHORITY AS QUITE OFTEN THEY DO NOT IMPLEMENT THE ADMISSION ARRANGEMENTS CORRECTLY, PARENTS ARE NOT GIVEN THIS INFORMATION SO PLEASE REQUEST FROM YOUR LOCAL MP WHO CAN HELP YOU!

You need to appeal if the council refuses to admit they have made a mistake even though all routes they have measured are incorrect! I appreciate no-one wants more that 30 in a class. However the admission authority and school system are in charge of these placements. I know the teachers do a fantastic job, however the admission authority should and must be accountable for their errors and unquietdad it feels more than great !!

Unquietdad the law says another teacher need not be appointed when the child is admitted as an exception (appeal)...

fantastic post merrylegs....

"How much input can you give? The answer is, not enough - especially if it is a mixed year group. It may not be a 'problem' for some of the parents on here, but perhaps they should be asking the teacher of the 33 children if s/he considers it a problem. I've seen a class with 33 kids in it - and the excellent teacher struggling against sheer weight of numbers. I just hope the OP doesn't have a 'magnolia' child. They are the ones that suffer most in an overcrowded class. "

I too teach a mixed year group, of year one and two...and my ones are very low ability and my twos are very high, and as such, it is a constant balancing act. My ones are also very needy, and I have 18 of them, and 12 2's. My 2's unfortunately have to "fall between the cracks" a lot of the time, because I am only one person, and I do not have a full time TA, so I can only be in one place at a time, and since my 2's are generally of higher ability, they have to just get "on with it"...which means those that are exceptionally bright do not get stretched because I simply do not have the time. Is that fair to them? Sure as heck is not. But I have year ones who are so desperately in need of constant input, that I have to spend most of my time with them. If I had 24-5 kids, it would make such a difference as I would have more time to work with each child or small groups.

It is so true what merrylegs said...what do you do when you're the parent of the child who is as I describe my year twos to be? Would you be pleased knowing that they are not getting as much input because my year ones demand so much more attention? I certainly would not if it were my child...but what do you suggest I do otherwise? Never mind adding in the two children in my class who started in the class not speaking a single word of English...where do they fit into it all?

So yes, the rules are there...they are not rules that are made to be broken, because one extra person gets in to make it 31, and then another which makes that number keep creeping up and up...so then where does the line get drawn? Who is told the final no?

Every child matters, and every child is thus entitled to an education, and to be able to acheive the best they can with the input of professionals to help them along the way. This is all well on good on paper, but in reality it simply cannot work when you have situations with too many children in a class...inevitably there are going to be children who are going to "fall through the cracks" and I certainly would not want that to be my child.

melissa - yes, but what should a parent in the situation I and others have been in? That of being in the catchment and being refused a place? Where you know that to put your child into the local school, the best one in the area - with all the benefits to the child that brings - will take you over the number? What should parents do? It's not so simple as "go somewhere else."

I think in this case UQD...you would need to ask yourself what makes the good school indeed a good school? IMO and IME...an infant classroom which is oversuscribed must lose the label of being "good" as each child is no longer being catered as much as they should be in reference to their education...it is just not humanely possible.

I'm very happy that I made the right decision in my case.

I have to agree with melissa often schools are over subscribed on past reputation. The time between one OFSTED and the next staff movement and the natural ability of each cohort can make a difference from one year to the next.
There is plenty of good research into the importance of class size especially in the early years. The new EYFS curriculum requires a great deal of adult support which has been recognised by both Wales and Scotland in their ratios unfortunately England has gone with the cheap option.

I'm sure you are happy Dad but what do the other 30 parents think about it ?
In your situation I'd have put my hand in my pocket and paid simply because the biggest advantage private education offers is smaller class sizes, forget everything else it's the time the teacher can spend with the individual that makes the difference. 31 is too many but we all know deep down that 30 is too.

whereverIlaymyhat - what planet do you live on and how deep do you think my pockets are? In any case I wanted my children to go to the local school where they would play with the children of our neighbours. They have fitted in very well and we received no hostility for our decision.

We have to remember that we are not talking about 24 vs 31 but 30 vs 31

we also have to remember that custardpants dc is as entitled to go to that school as any other child there.

If classes over 30 are so abhorrant how many of you would pull your child out when it goes to 31 just to preserve that magic number hands up who would choose the school in special measures 1 hour away becasue the class size is only 24?

CUSTARDPANTS - I say well done to you! and well done for following the process through, it is no easy ride and its good to hear that some people do win! I think some of the comments on here are harsh and in the same circumstances they would have done the same without a doubt!

Interesting read. I'm on the other side here, I found out yesterday that my DS was given a place which we accepted but technically we shouldn't have been offered it as they mis-calculated distances. The girl who was on wait list behind us should have been ahead of us. Her parents appealed and were given a place without having to go to the appeals board, due to the admin error but then the parents of the other two children on the wait list, after us, kicked up such a fuss that an additional place was allocated without going to the appeals board and this had jeapordised their chances of a place the LEA has conceeded and so now there are 3 extra kids in the class.

Now I understand why an existing Mum asked a freind of mine what was wrong with my DS, wanting to know what medical grounds I'd got him in on. Plus I've been getting a bit of the cold shoulder over recent weeks, which seems to have disappeared yesterday now all the other "village" (which we aren't) kids are in.

melissa i thought with mixed year groups they normally have the higher ability children from the lower year and the lower ability children from the higher year so the difference between them isn't too great? that's what they do round here i think but they have an intake of 45 so they would have a year 1 class of 30, a year two class of 30 and a mixed year 1/2 class of 30.

i initially wrote this post to give some parens hope that when they have suffered an injustice at the hands of their LA or CC they can make the relevant authorities rectify their error. I found the whole process very upsetting and was appalled at the lack of information available to individuals who felt they had been mistreated. if the CC or LA have made an error they need to put it right. ALL OF YOU critising the appeal obviously do not have a moral sense of what is right or wrong. If you feel that a council can make as many errors as they chose and not correct them or even apologise than i hope you one day are put through this hell. If you live in greater london it is highly likely that all classes are at 30. If you can afford to put your child in private education then good for you. leave a space at the local school so another child can attend who cannit afford such luxuries!

Custard - I totally agree with you! Surely in any instance if you were to make a mistake at work you would correct it! - just because it involves the LEA doesn't mean they are exempt from mistakes and you have to 'lump it'. As I see it, if the LEA had been correct in the first place then you would have had a place and so it is 'someone elses' child who is making the number 31!! I for one am glad hear of someone winning their appeal as you are lead to beleive that it is an open and shut case and no-one ever wins.

Nappy - it's up to each school how they organise their mixed age classes. I worked in a school which had three parallel classes for each off Yr 1/2, yr 3/4 and yr 5/6. (ie. 3 x 1/2, 3 x 3/4, 3 x 56) Each class had a mix of ability, age, gender, SEN etc.

Some schools organise it on emotional maturity rather than academic ability. This works particularly well in Foundation/KS1.

Nappy - it's up to each school how they organise their mixed age classes. I worked in a school which had three parallel classes for each off Yr 1/2, yr 3/4 and yr 5/6. (ie. 3 x 1/2, 3 x 3/4, 3 x 56) Each class had a mix of ability, age, gender, SEN etc.

Some schools organise it on emotional maturity rather than academic ability. This works particularly well in Foundation/KS1.

Oops! Sorry.

i asked at school today and every class in my dd school has a full-time ta. There are also extra ones to help with the kids who need extra help but they are part-time.

It sounds as if this school is the lucky one. Every class has 30 kids in it - none more than that, though I think some of the junior classes have slightly less.

I don't know how they do it, or if they save in other areas, but i truly think people should be campaigning if this isnt the situation in your school

I didn't really know what a 'class size prejudice rule' was. I read the OP as somehow dismissing it as red tape and having found a loophole managed to get her child in to a school with too many kids in it.

Now she has come back - thank you (!) and I realise it is more than that. I am glad her child is in the school of her choice.

BUT I stick by my point and don't think it as at all 'precious' to get 'hung up' on class size.

I wanted to say it may not be a problem for the parents, but it is for the teachers, but was worried someone would say 'well, if they were a good teacher, they could cope.'

I am glad some teachers have come on here to back my comments up.

One teacher, 33 kids, You do the maths. (Because if your kid is in that class, it's likely they aren't!)

I often say to my kids, when they are all talking at me at once, or they all want something at the same time 'there is only one of me and three of you.'

And I'm only finding clean underwear or lost lego.

Not teaching them the Victorians, or spellings or the Solar System, as my DD's teacher has to do, (on his own), to a class of 33 year twos and threes (all of them, bottom to top).

Nappy - some schools only have a few children in each year group and a mixed age class might consist of allcomers in 2 or even 3 year groups.
Being a good teacher does not mean you can magic time out of nowhere.

But all of that has to be set against the schooling needs of an individual child. Which is what an appeal panel does.

I also think the TA's are a red herring. Yes they have been through NVQ's before allowed in the classroom but either we value the teaching profession or we don't. At the local private school which I am busting a gut to get mine into the teachers have a degree in their chosen subject and then a PGCE and have the children from 8.45 to 3.30 - no PPA time, no being babysat by TA's and this is why the gap is widening under a labour government it's beyond ridiculous.

Unquietdad if a council has made a mistake which prevents a child being offered a place in a particular case.Then they have to be offered that place .There is no weighing up to be done !

WhereverIlaymyhat.- you are lucky that the private school you are aiming for has all qualified teachers- many private schools don't.They pay cheap wages and get teachers who haven't got QTS