Are there really 30 pupils in a reception class?

[Serenjen]

I know this sounds dim. Our school is taking in 60 reception children. I mentioned to my mum that it means 30 children per class. So then we thought, isn't 30 four and five year olds in the same class a hell of alot for one teacher? I know they have classroom assistants, but how in the world can one teacher actually teach this many little ones?

yes they dont TEACH reception
or do in small groups when others play

ditto Verity - that has just made me realise that there will be 36/37 in ds1's yr 3/4 class next year. not sure if they have a ta.

in my child's inner London state school reception class there are 20 pupils, one teacher and 3 TAs. I can't understand why, but it is fantastic.

There were 31 in DD's Yr R class; still are now she's in Yr 1. There's also a class of 31 in the year above - all 'illegal' but this is what happens when the local authority sticks extra kids in an oversubscribed school, for one reason or another.

In Yr R each class (there are two) had a full-time fully-qualified (ie actually qualified to teach) TA. But even with a parent in to help that would leave two tables each of six 4/5yos 'working' by themselves. DD is doing fine, but one of her friends has just had to go through several weeks of (enormously successful) intervention to get her reading up to scratch, which I can't help but think wouldn't have been necessary with a more sensible adult: child ratio.

DontCallMeBaby class size permitted exception apply only for the remainder of the school year that the child is admitted (unless the child is admitted on grounds of SEN). The school should employ another teacher once classes exceed 30.
cases to the DCSF Fair Access Team ([email protected] ) if a school is in breach of infant class size duty but refuses to take remedial action

"(unless the child is admitted on grounds of SEN)."

Hi mrz - could you explain that bit for me please? We have 31 in Reception next year, and our Head and Deputy insist they don't need another teacher because the 31st child is SEN and should be in Y1 (which have 29). The child will be taught in the Reception class though (we have many children out of year group, but historically they have always been counted as part of the class they are taught in, not their 'real' year group). Are they right?

We are rural aswell, DD has 20 in her class starting in September, last years intake had 8, there has been a slight babyboom but also a large influx of army families.

ds1's 36/367 yr 3/4 class is in a village school.
PAN is 17, ds1's year took 21 as a large year and both year above and below were under PAN. Someone joined ds1's year this year (no idea how) and the year above has increased.
Fine in KS1 as yr 1 are split, so mixed rec/yr1 and y1/yr2 - although I believe there are 29/30 in the yr1/yr2 class. But in KS2 you get 2 full year groups in one class. Normally around the 30 mark but with ds1's year being so large (for the school)...

My son's school has a full time TA in each class in reception and year one. Not sure about year two. I helped a number of times in reception and found the class room calm and orderly, with work going on.

I have to say that there are very few days in reception where there are 30 children all day. There's always someone off, or having a half day because they aren't five yet. There were plenty of days in the winter when the class was down to 20!

In reception there was nearly always at least one other helper in the class - parent, teaching practice, early years students, local old ladies, visitors.

I was delighted to see how well a big class worked.

My children attend one of the 'less desirable' ( ) school in the area (it is still an ofsted 2, we ar just in a good schooling area) and people are so snobby about it...BUT if you look at the class sizes, it is actually a great thing, being that there is often only 20 to 25 in each class rather than the oversubscribed surrounding schools where the children are shoehorned into the classroom. I think if a child is going to thrive, a 2 school with one on one attention is going to be loads better than a 1 school with no attention. We are happy and so are the DC.

Permitted exceptions to the infant class size limit

1. Regulations (the Education (Infant Class Sizes) prescribe the limited circumstances in which pupils may be admitted as exceptions to the infant class size limit.

These exceptions are:

a) children with statements of special educational needs who are admitted to the school outside the normal admissions round;

b) children moving into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within a reasonable distance (the regulations require that admission authorities must check with local authorities before determining that a child falls into this category);

c) children admitted after the initial allocation of places because the person responsible for making the decision recognizes that an error was made in implementing the school?s admission arrangements and a place ought to have been offered;

d) looked after children admitted outside the normal admissions round;
e) children admitted where an independent appeal panel upholds an appeal on the grounds that the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented, and/or the admission authority?s decision to refuse a place was not one which a reasonable admission authority would have made;

f) children who are registered pupils at special schools and who, by arrangement with another school which is not a special school, receive part of their education at that other school;
g) children with special educational needs who are registered pupils at a school which is not a special school and are normally educated in a special educational needs unit attached to that school, and attend an infant class in the mainstream school (i.e. not in the unit) where this has been deemed as beneficial to the child.

In the case of f) and g), the child will remain an exception for any time they spend in an infant class at the mainstream school or outside the special unit.

However in all other circumstances the child will only remain an exception for the remainder of the school year in which they are admitted. Measures must be taken the following year to ensure the class falls within the infant class limit.

Feenie I would imagine the school is reporting the child as Y1 in the annual census so bending the truth and balancing the books while breaking the rules

Permitted exceptions to the infant class size limit

1. Regulations (the Education (Infant Class Sizes) prescribe the limited circumstances in which pupils may be admitted as exceptions to the infant class size limit.

These exceptions are:

a) children with statements of special educational needs who are admitted to the school outside the normal admissions round;

b) children moving into the area outside the normal admissions round for whom there is no other available school within a reasonable distance (the regulations require that admission authorities must check with local authorities before determining that a child falls into this category);

c) children admitted after the initial allocation of places because the person responsible for making the decision recognizes that an error was made in implementing the school?s admission arrangements and a place ought to have been offered;

d) looked after children admitted outside the normal admissions round;
e) children admitted where an independent appeal panel upholds an appeal on the grounds that the child would have been offered a place if the admission arrangements had been properly implemented, and/or the admission authority?s decision to refuse a place was not one which a reasonable admission authority would have made;

f) children who are registered pupils at special schools and who, by arrangement with another school which is not a special school, receive part of their education at that other school;
g) children with special educational needs who are registered pupils at a school which is not a special school and are normally educated in a special educational needs unit attached to that school, and attend an infant class in the mainstream school (i.e. not in the unit) where this has been deemed as beneficial to the child.

In the case of f) and g), the child will remain an exception for any time they spend in an infant class at the mainstream school or outside the special unit.

However in all other circumstances the child will only remain an exception for the remainder of the school year in which they are admitted. Measures must be taken the following year to ensure the class falls within the infant class limit.

Feenie I would imagine the school is reporting the child as Y1 in the annual census so bending the truth and balancing the books while breaking the rules

Thanks - have you got a link for that, please?

www.dcsf.gov.uk/sacode/downloads/ManagingComplianceSept08.pdf

Brilliant - thanks

The 'extra' child in DD's year is the result of (c) above (a mistake) and the one in the year above is an (e), ie an appeal which was upheld. In theory, yes, the school should have employed an extra Yr 1 teacher when the current Yr 2s moved up from Yr R. They'd still need an extra teacher now that they're in Yr 2, and Yr 1 need an extra teacher too. So - we could have two extra teachers, but the extra funding for only TWO extra children! Or the school could rejig the year groups and have one extra teacher to bring the class sizes down across KS1, so five teachers to teach 122 children - which would be brilliant in some ways, but very expensive, and that's if the school could find somewhere to put this extra teacher and class. Plus at least one class would have to be mixed age, I guess if the youngest Yr 2s were put with the eldest Yr 1s that would be okay.

We've heard of at least one school locally which has got round the problem by moving a child from the 'oversubscribed' year up into the year above, whether it be 'undersubscribed', or just in KS2 where the same rules don't apply. This seems like a particularly damaging solution - I'd MUCH rather have my daughter in a class of 31 than have some poor kid uprooted into a different class just to keep Ed Balls from sending the school snippy letters (the sum total of sanctions to date).

But would the teacher prefer to teach 31?

In an ideal world I've no doubt they'd rather teach 20 or 25 than 30 or 31, rightly so. If the choice is between 30 and 31, with the legal 30 being achieved at the cost of moving a child into the class above (where they're taught as their own age group in an older class, ugh) I would hope they would prefer to have the 31. 20 versus 31 would be difficult - you can have a class at 20, but this is what it costs ... the cost of the extra teacher, plus the Portakabin in the playground (and of course one of them would have to teach in that Portakabin for at least a year), that'll mean a lot of other things don't get bought. Interesting dilemma. We have a new head starting in September, who may feel differently about it all of course.

our classes all have 30 children in, plenty of learning goes on but it is too many, even with a TA. imo.

i have been in to help, the teacher doesn't get round to everyone with questions when they are sat doing their work.

now in y1 they all seem to be doing well anyway, all are reading fine and the maths seems to be getting quite tricky!

i often wondered why in our school, with an intake of 90/year = 3 teachers and 3 TAs, why they don't ask for a voluntary contribution of £500/yr per pupil, = £45000. even if only half the parents paid it, imagine the resource that could buy in?

FYI it may be possible for the school to not overadmit, even when one of the exceptions applies. Our school recently strongly objected (governors and head) to the LEA wanting to overadmit to yr2 (which is already 31 following a temporary over admission), and as a result they have not forced the 32nd child onto the school.

My DD is in a Reception class of 33 (Due to admin errors etc during last year's admissions I think) I thought they had to keep to 30, but apparently in Reception they don't have to - it is only once they get to Y1. If there are still more than 30 in their class when they get to Y1 in September, the school have said they will have to get an extra teacher not just extra TA.

My DS is in a reception class on 30-well actually its really a class of 60 because its 2 classrooms made open plan so although they are in 2 separate classes its really 1 big class cause they mix up so much.

I was really worried this time last year at the prospect of him going from about a 1-5 ratio at private nursery (it was all we could find when we moved here)to a huge classroom with 1 Teacher and a TA and 30 children but it has actually been quite amazing both in terms of how he has coped with it and how the teachers themselves deal with it. Im sure they would love smaller classes themselves but as another poster said not a huge amount gets done in a big group anyway.

I think if the teacher is good enough and knows how to handle and engage the children then a class of 30 is not so bad. FWIW we had the chance to send him to a teeny tiny primary in the next village but decided against it cause was mixed classes with 15 children in each class but only 7/8 in each year. Yes the classes were small but you are a bit stuck if you don't get on with any of the other children. At least with a larger class there is a bigger friendship pool.