Class sizes in junior school

[debs40]

I've just read a piece on the beeb website about class sizes.

I was surprised to see the average junior school class size is 26.8.

My son is in Y2 at a primary in a class of 28. Yr 3 will be a class of 35!

I know that other posters have posted before saying their schools class sizes are as big but I wonder why this is. Why do some schools manage to limit classes to around 26/27 and others open their doors to 35/6?

It clearly affects the quality of education.

I really worry how my son (who has ASD) will cope in such a big group

Debs40,
I would look at the admission criteria for the school and its Published Admission Number. Could it be that they are taking in pupils at Junior school point (year 3) because there is an infant school nearby?
The other obvious alternate is that they have a PAN of 35 or something like this and they are keeping the infant classes well below 30, which then means that when it comes to junior level they have less classrooms available and therefore a need to keep to 1 class per year group with 35 in.

Yes as others have said this is usually led by the PAN.

Our schools have a PAN of 80 (inf and jnr schools). DD's year, for example, is undersubscribed so there are 2 classes, both around 30-32.

That's a bit over 60 in the year - you can see I am sure that if, say, 5 pupils wanted to join after Easter, they would most likely have to be added to existing school classes.

School would have to take them because of the PAN, but no funds to make the year group 3 classes of 22.

No infant school nearby.

There is a junior corridor - Yr 3,4,5 and 6 each with 35+

There is an infant corridor with 4 classes. They have a reception class (26), then a small reception/y1 split class (about 22), a Yr1 (+ 6 from Y2)(28) and a Y2 (28).

In Yr 3, the Y2 and the 6 or so from the Y1 class are put back together to make 35.

So there is always around 35 children in each year, they just mend and make do with a mixed class in Yr 1 until they get to Y3 when they can put them all into together.

Where and by whom is the PAN published?

Yes sounds as if they break down the KS1 classes to get under 30 then put them together for KS2.

PAN is published bythe local authority. We get a big booklet with all that info in when we need to apply for new school (which we did last Oct) but I would think on LA website too. It's on ours, the Admissions Handbook is a downloadable pdf.

Thanks, no chance of that sort of information being readily available with our useless LA.

Thanks. It's been interesting to know these things.

The school my DD will start in Sept has a PAN of 70

The aim to have around 23/4 in 3 x YR classes and then 28 in Y1/Y2 (5 classes, including 1 split class) and 35 in KS2 classes (2 per year)

Fine in theory, but due to admissions from appeals last year there are 76 in YR, which if no one leaves will be 38 in a class at KS2 (It's a fairly static population round here, only a tiny number move far enough away to change school)

I hope they don't have any too many sccessful appeals this year... (I think around 50 people didn't get places - no idea how many are appealing)

Debs,
As I suspected the PAN is 34 / 35 because the school has 8 classrooms, each of which will have a nominal 30 places.
The school is actually doing the only thing that they can do with the PAN as it stands.
The only alternative is to remove one of the classrooms from use and then get the PAN reduced to 30 per year group. This is not as easy as it seems, especially if there is not a great deal of places available locally. The LA will have a great say on whether the PAN can be changed, but my guess would be that the school is happy to live with the situation as it stands.

We did as admission says reduced the PAN from 36 to 29 and make a spare classroom into a workforce support room two years ago this year - how shall I put it - the LA are trying to encourage us to have an intake of 35 which can be achieved if we move 3 children from y1 into Y2 and place 5 reception children in Y1

If thats the average class size then remember that for every extra large class there is proberly a rural school with 14 to a class.

My kids whole school was smaller than the numbers mentioned here, I just can't imagine it!

Our school has 4 year groups put into 3 classes
class 1 year 1/2
class 2 year 2/3
class 3 year 3/4
Legally we were told that class 1 + 2 could be no larger than 30 to a teacher.
DS will be in class 3 soon with over 40 kids 1 teacher and 1 TS.
How can that be good for any of them?

Intresting as am fighting get dd a place from y3 in local school and know there not keen on going over but am appealing harder as they make there own lists