Class sizes in UK state schools!

35 just seems huge, especially for a group of reception aged children. Yikes.

Speaking as someone who works with 2-4 year olds definitely agree with a 1 adult to 35 reception aged kids is  yikes  .  I'd imagine at that age there would be teaching assistants in the room as well though so it wouldn't really be that big.

You guys wouldn't have liked my primary school then... we had 36 pupils in each class from Reception right through to Year 6 (this was 1987-1994)!! I also only remember having 1 teacher, plus maybe 1 assistant for the entire class.

Is there a specific law in the UK regarding class size, or does it vary by council? Certainly there has to be a cap somewhere along the line. I'm amazed at the number of "over-subscribed"  schools in this area alone.

I'm not sure about specific laws, but I was just looking at the website for my old primary school and it says on there that since 2002, the Reception class intake has been limited to 30 pupils only.

My daughter is almost 7 and her class is around 25-30 students (it fluctuates so much throughout the year  ).  There are 2-4 TAs that rotate in and out.  The separate into smaller groups for math and for reading based on their skill level (I think there are around 4 different level groups for each) and they also have a general study with the entire class.

I found the number of students to be disturbing at first but once I realized they did break up into smaller groups with more individualized attention, it didn't bother me as much.  I think it's harder for the teacher to keep the class in order when you have a class of that size (with younger kids).  From what I understand, the teachers do a lot of yelling at the students to be quiet and sit down...which I don't like.

What bothers me the most is the lack of school work.  I like the more laidback approach to things and the fact that they put a lot of emphasis on arts and creativity and things that seem to be slowly fading out of the US school systems...but I don't feel like she's been challenged/prepared enough.  We also do a lot of our own (made up) homework as her only school homework is to read...which she does all the time anyway.

And that brings me to another point of contention- there are so many amazing childrens books out there and our primary school has such boring rubbish.  It's a shame.

And then my daughter has two different teachers in the week (job share for two new mums).  I've come to the conclusion it works very well for them, but is of little benefit to the children.  There seems to be continuing confusion as a result. 

Sorry for the off topic rant. 

The teachers definitely have my sympathies as they are dealing with quite a lot of disrespect and shocking attitudes.