Appeal - school net capacity

[Ivka234]

I was wondering if any of the experts here might be able to help me makes sense of an argument that a school has put forward in its submission to an admission appeal panel. The school claims that it doesn't have any extra capacity to accommodate additional pupils:

"The majority of our non-specialist classrooms can only reasonably fit up to 24 seated occupants; this number necessitates a row setup, consisting of 3 rows of four tables. This would amount to having a maximum of 72 occupants per year group (as there are 3 classes per year group). The school must plan for the accommodation of 2 in-class SEN LSAs for each year group, as is the case for September 2022. The maximum capacity of three parallel classes would therefore be for 70 students after adult occupancy in the classrooms is taken into account."

Yet the school also has a net capacity assessment. Dividing this net capacity assessment by the number of year groups in the school gives 105 pupils per year. Does the fact that the net capacity assessment is much larger than the numbers the school allows for significantly undermine the school's argument regarding its capacity? I would have thought that the net capacity assessment takes into account the number of classrooms in the school.

Thanks in advance.

[prh47bridge]

Yes, the net capacity assessment uses the number of classrooms in the school and the sizes of those classrooms, alongside other factors. Does the school have a sixth form? If so, remember that the net capacity includes that. If the school has a large sixth form, it reduces the number of pupils they can admit in other years. But it is certainly something worth exploring. If the school cannot come up with a satisfactory explanation for the apparent discrepancy, it will clearly help you.

[admission]

I agree with PRH that there does seem to be a discrepancy in the figures. If there is a 6th from that would explain it. If no 6th form then you need to be asking the question of how the school get to the figure of 72 (24 per classroom) when the net capacity is 105. That is a sizable difference.

[Ivka234]

Thanks both - much appreciated. Are there any guidelines for how many pupils can fit into a classroom of a particular size?

[prh47bridge]

There are but it is quite complicated as it depends on how the classroom will be used. For a general classroom, the current standard is 55m2 for 30 pupils, whereas an art room requires 83m2 for 30 pupils.

[lanthanum]

How old is this school building? How did it get to have such small classrooms?

(Although I do know that in the 1990s the "standard" was something like 26 per science lab, I think on an assumption that science might be in smaller groups than classroom subjects - which it wasn't.)

[Ivka234]

Thanks both. The school was built in the early 2000s. Does that not fit with the measurements it's given?

[admission]

If the school was a maintained school and was built in the early 2020s then the classrooms should theoretically have been built to a size of 55 sq metres, which is appropriate for 30 pupils.
There may have been specific reasons why the classrooms are possibly smaller than the 55 sq metres, which would mean only 24 per class. However I am aware that some academy schools have traded on saying that they have classes with a low number of pupils in each class, so I wonder whether this is a case of having a classroom theoretically capable of taking 30 pupils but the school having agreed only 24 as the published admission number. The question you need resolving is what is the published admission number for the school

[Ivka234]

Thanks. For some reason, this school's PAN has shrunk over time. It was previously closer to the net capacity assessment.

[prh47bridge]

If there has been no change to the buildings, that is definitely worth exploring. If they are trying to have small classes as a selling point and operating under capacity as a result, that will help you.