6 hours ago
9
Re your editorial (The Guardian view on inclusive schools: ministers should recognise that class size matters, 3 February), after 25 years of teaching large primary classes, 2020-21 brought a revelation. During the spring 2021 lockdown, my class was reduced to about 18 children, who were either the children of key workers or had special educational needs and disabilities (Send).
For the first time ever, I could sit with an individual child for five whole minutes to resolve a maths difficulty, or have an in-depth reading discussion. As a class we did science investigations we could normally only dream of, due to having enough space and resources. Send children grew the confidence to give opinions or ask for help. Every child lucky enough to be in school truly fulfilled their potential in a way that could never normally happen. It was a vision of what education could be. However, March quickly arrived and the children were back to having no elbow room to write properly, and sharing vital resources between six.
Anyone who says class size makes no difference hasn’t spent their working day squashed up against their colleagues and still be expected to work and behave at their best, as our children have to every day.
Caroline Manley
Liverpool
Of course class size matters. I spent 42 years in primary education in various roles, from class teaching, being a music specialist, a visiting advisory teacher, a vocal animateur and a visiting tutor for PGCE/apprenticeship courses.
I observed and taught classes ranging from one pupil to the normal 30-plus in state schools. In private schools, below 20 is the norm and it most definitely makes a difference to teaching and learning. The outcomes are not the same. It has always been the case that small classes cost money, and that’s the bottom line. Politicians and those in charge of education will never admit that smaller groups are better. The benefits massively outweigh the few disadvantages.
Carole Kendall
Letchworth Garden City, Hertfordshire
Looking back on my teaching career, one of my most vivid memories of the late 1960s was trying single-handedly to “teach” a class of 48 nine‑ and 10-year-olds in a very overcrowded classroom. Note the inverted commas around “teach”. How far was I really teaching those children? I couldn’t know all of them very well; some regularly slipped my attention. That class included children with a range of special needs that I didn’t recognise at the time and couldn’t have met single-handedly anyway.
Sixty years on, class size still matters. Falling rolls could help meet that range of special and other needs, and to give all individuals more attention. My pupils’ grand- or even great-grandchildren deserve no less.
Prof Colin Richards
Former primary school teacher and schools inspector, Cumbria
Re the editorial advocating for smaller class sizes and stating an average class size of 26.6 pupils in 2024, I’ve recently come across the class photo from my final year of primary school (class 4A, Grange junior school, Bradford, teacher Mr Byrne) in which there are 43 pupils. So some progress has been made since 1961. (I still made it to Liverpool University.)
Martin Goodwin
Standish, Greater Manchester
