Split classes - how are they going to work this out!!

[fatzak]

DSes are at village school which has split classes. It depends on the number of new reception children how the classes work, but this year it has been:

Class 1 Reception + younger half of Yr 1
Class 2 Older half of Yr1 plus Year 2
Class 3 All year 3
Class 4 All year 4 and 5

(we only go up to Yr 5)

But this year, there are 25 new Reception children, so I'm wondering how on earth they are going to split 4 class teachers amongst 6 Years! Am also slightly worried for DS2 as he is a late August birthday, has shown zero interest in learning this year and so I was hoping that he would spend next year in a shared R/Yr1 class and be able to work alongside the Reception children. He is going to really struggle if he has to be with Yr 1/Yr 2.

Also, do you think that Yr 2 would all have to move up to Yr 3 as it's the next Key Stage? DS1 is in Yr 2 but has missed a lot of school due to chronic illness - I'd be happy for him to stay with the younger lot in Year 2 but suspect he'll go into Yr 3 with the rest of his class.

Any thoughts or examples of what they do in your schools?

How many children are there in each year group?

Classes break even at about 27/28 children in the class. By having mixed-age year groups, the school is basically trying to make sure they get as close to 30 per class as possible.

Without knowing the numbers in the other year groups it is impossible to speculate what the classes will be. My guess would be that you have some very uneven year groups from the way that it is currently organised.

However the ICS Regs will be appropriate so the reception class can only be the 25 reception pupils + 5 of the yr 1 class as a maximum.

There's usually about 15 per year group - the new Reception class is unusually very high!

Will just have to wait and see what happens - it'll be all change in September with a new Head and new Deputy too!

Is 15 the county set intake number, or is the intake number higher, but the school usually gets only 15 pupils per year group?

ie. is it likely that additional children will arrive into other year groups during the year?

They should not have admitted 25 in a year group if the PAN is really 15. I suspect that the PAN is actually 20+ and it is the fact that the school has not been full.

The real question to be asked is how many classrooms do they have? If it is 4 then they will have 5 year groups of 15 plus 25 which is 85, which can easily be accomodated in 4 classes. I would have thought the obvious split was reception of 25, with the remaining 65 split between 3 classes of 21/22.

That's what I was trying to get at admission. I just wondered if it was some kind of "bulge" class.

Have just had a look online and the PAN is 25. It will be interesting to see what they do decide to do with the other 3 classes - there is actually an "extra" classroom which is used as part of Class 1 but no extra teacher! Have a meeting after school with DS1's teacher (oh dear, he was just too young to start this year ) so will try and find out more then

If the PAN is 25, that is a net capacity of 175, which would usually equate to 6 classrooms in total, designed to take 30 pupils each.

This is not going to be about pupil numbers but more about the number of staff that can be employed using the available funding. If I was the school I would definitely go with the 4 classes I suggested. The school need to be asking themselves is the start of full classes or is just a bulge year and next year is back down to 15.

If there are 25 children in reception and 15 in years 1-5 that equates to 100 children in total in the school so 25 pupils per teacher

Or if they want to keep KS1 & 2 separate they could go with 25 reception
30 Y1/2 mixed
15 in Y3
30 in Y4/5 mixed

I had thought on the same lines as you mrz.

When I spoke to DS1's teacher tonight, she is hoping that the Reception intake will even stay at 25 as there are lots of children in the area appealing for places and they could have to go up to 30 in Reception. She would like Class 1 be the 25 Reception plus the very youngest of Yr 1 which would include DS2 as he is the very youngest.

I think that there has been so much housing built in the areas around us, that the other schools aren't placing even their catchment children so there is a knock on effect on all the other schools. Plus we are also very close to another 2 LEAs where the secondary schools aren't quite as good so many parents seem to be choosing to apply to us even for KS1.

Thanks for your thoughts - will keep you updated on what they decide to do