London Bangla A Force for the community…
IT WAS back in 1997 that the new Labour Government capped class sizes for children aged 5-7 to just 30 pupils. That achievement has endured – and class sizes across England are below that magic number.
But the bare numbers don’t tell the whole story. Tutorspace (of which more later) has taken government data and revealed that while Key Stage 1 classes have decreased in size, Key Stage 2 classes are on the increase. Here’s what they have found.
Key Stage 1 (Reception, Years 1 and 2)
●Class sizes are down by 1.5% in the last five academic years.
●Over that time, classes have dropped from an average size of 26.6 pupils to 26.2 pupils.
●The drop has been the largest in the East Midlands (down 2.3%).
●The drop has been the lowest in London, where the average Key Stage 1 class size is down from 27 to 26.8 – a drop of just 0.74%.
Key Stage 2 (Years 3-6)
●Class sizes are up by 1.1% over the last five academic years.
●Over that time, average class size has risen from 28.1 pupils to 28.4 pupils.
●The increase has been the largest in London, where average class sizes have risen from 27.2 pupils to 27.5 pupils – a rise of 1.1%.
●The increase has been the lowest in the South West, where average class size has gone up from 27.7 to 27.8 – an increase of 0.4%.
Patrick Nadier, CEO of TutorSpace – a German national tutoring association – believes that class sizes are extremely important. “While smaller class sizes allow teachers to build stronger relationships with students and deliver personalised teaching techniques, larger class sizes can lead to reduced engagement and success.”
However, when looking at data relating to schools, it is important to remember that these are snapshots, not permanent, and it takes more than adding up the numbers to work out what is going on in schools.
First, these changes in class sizes may simply be due to the changing size of cohorts of the relevant age group, rather than any particular social policy. Tower Hamlets Council, for example, has recently been planning future school places. The number of the youngest children who require a school place is going down, so something will have to be done about what will be an excess of school places in the next few years. On the other hand, when Mayor Lutfur Rahman’s Borough Plan – with its aim to build an extra 50,000 homes in the borough – kicks in, more places will be needed again.
Second, class sizes are only one half of the issue. The other part is to ask how many teachers there are in those classes. Taking Tower Hamlets has an example again, a decade ago there was funding for teaching assistants to work with pupils whose first language was not English and with pupils who had been assessed as having a special need. There could be five or six adults in each classroom, all supporting the learning of 30 pupils. Funding for teaching assistants has now fallen, and the Government has been quietly encouraging schools to “absorb” the costs of supporting pupils with special needs rather than paying for bespoke assistants. Many primary classes will see one teacher in charge of most lessons in the class, with minimal assistance. If that is the case, these small changes in average class size cannot tell us much on their own.
Tutoring
Education is free in the UK, but many parents feel under pressure to pay for their children to go to out of hours tutors – as if it were a status symbol to engage a tutor. The youngest children have to spend the whole day at school, and many will bring home a reading book on the expectation that their parents will ensure that they read for 20 minutes or so. Even parents who are not fluent in English can still ensure their children do this reading. Then after that, well-meaning children are taken to a community centre, where they interact with a private tutor, at significant cost (particularly if the parents have more than one child). The children come home in time to go to bed late, which makes them tired for school the next day. It would be more beneficial if parents supervised the reading homework and then let their child wind down before going to bed at a good time.
Key Stage 2 children tend to have their own homework, possibly more than just daily reading. It is important that they reinforce what they have learned at school by doing this homework. Whisking them off to a private tutor may not help them learn what they need to.
The UK system is different from the education system in Germany, where a greater emphasis is put on marks given for exams or continuous assessment. Pupils must reach a set score in order to progress to the next year, so any improvement in grades can be crucial. The school day is usually from 7am or 8am to 12 noon or 1pm – leaving the afternoon for homework (or tutoring to get those grades) and the evening to relax or socialise.
Any parent considering paying for private tutors for primary school children should discuss this with their child’s class teacher before going ahead.
●In the meantime, TutorSpace has asked that any report of its research be accompanied by a link to its website, which is here:
https://tutorspace.de/
Be warned: the website is in German. Grausam.
●Read more about it:
Horses go back to school
Table for thirty-eight thousand and two, please!
