Class Size?

[Angelinalily]

What is the limit to the number of students that can be in each class in primary schools?

One of the schools I am considering informed me they will probably have 29 students in each class.

That seems like too many to me.

What does anyone else think? Any experiences good or bad with class size?

[forbetoel]

My kids are in grade prep and grade 2, and they have 20 pupils in one class and there is 21 in the other.

[mumma bear]

I think 29 is average for state schools. We had 32 as a max through primary school.

My local only has about 5 to 10 in each year with lots of mixed classes. We are in a small country town.

[Ffrenchknickers]

WOW 29 is heaps....too many in my opinion....will they have 2 teachers?

[A Party of Five]

My DD started kinder (Catholic) this year and she has 19 class mates, with a teacher and teacher's aid :yes:

[Ffrenchknickers]

When my son went to school he had 19 in his class.....that was a big public school.

[punkbaby]

dd had 20 in prep and grade 1 since then her class sizes have varied from 25 to 30 kids. DS has 26 in his kinder class though but has 3 teachers so its not to bad i guess

[Seekrit]

I believe that in early years (prep and 1) for QLD public schools the limit is 24... I'm 99% sure that's correct, I'll chase up that other 1% when I go to work on Thursday :)

I should note, that class size isn't the only thing to look for, you get some highly capable teachers that do great things regardless of having 3 or 30 kids.

I work in a school with small class sizes (the whole school is 40 kids) and lots of people see that and go "YAY GREAT" they don't realise that means that in one classroom we have 5 year levels.. so even though it's a small class, it's tough work and doesn't mean more attention.

[ikis84]

NSW state schools, kindy can only have 20, and I believe that yr 1 is about 26.

[forbetoel]

I dont think there are any restrictions in Victoria, but I only have this opinion because a friend of mine has 26 students in her prep class (she is a teacher)

[forbetoel]

I say make your choice about the whole school, the class size is only a small part of the whole experiene your child will be getting. Whats the use of 18 students in a class when there is a useless teacher in charge iykwim? A brilliant teacher could work well with 30.

[ikis84]

I am a teacher (well, almost, I have 2 more subjects to go) and it is very normal to have 30 students in a class (the 1/2 class I am on at the moment has 34 students). While smaller class sizes can be better, it really depends on the quality of the teacher and the school.

[Angelinalily]

Thanks for all the replies. I don't think I need to be worried about the class size. So I will cross that off the list when making my decision:)

[Chelle123]

My DS will start at the Catholic school next year. They only take 52 kids into prep so he'll have 26 in his class. This seems reasonable to me as he has about 23 kids in his kinder class.

I guess there would be more advantage to smaller classes with more student/teacher time but this school has an excellent reputation and there aren't many schools in our area that have small classes.