[hisimp-chat] class sizes

[Elizabeth Fraser]

Combining year groups has happened more recently than 20 years ago. 
When the current year11 children went through both the infants and 
junior school it was a very small year group. Mixed age classes were 
used at both schools to help manage the problem of losing a teacher due 
to the dip in roll. The year mrs Birch started at the junior school 
there was a mixed Y3/4 class. I remember some parents being very upset 
at the thought of it but don't recall how satisfied or not they were by 
the end of the year.  Maybe you could contact some of them, I know at 
the time some of them had a petition, to no avail! So Mrs Birch has 
recent experience of this issue. Don't know if this will help you in 
how to approach the issue. It may be that the school has a really good 
plan as to how to manage 39 per class that will keep everyone happy. 
Trying to keep an open mind when it is your own child involved can be 
very hard as subjectivity seems to desert us when we feel our children 
are under any kind of real or imagined threat. However, I doubt Mrs 
Birch will do anything that may result in the SAT results taking a dip. 
Good luck, I hope eveything turns out ok and the children are happy and 
learning.


Elizabeth
--
elizabeth.f at ntlworld.com