Are country primary schools giving better education

BMurr

While watching a programme the other day about farm safety talk being given to primary school children I realised that the class had only about 10 children and the seating layout reflected this. I found it quite shocking given that my children have had an average of 25 to 30 children in their classes during their recent primary education. While I have accepted such large class sizes as a reflection of our public education system being of limited finances it is quite irritating to think that this is not reflected across the board and that a sector of our society may be getting extremely good treatment in comparison. I believe that such small class sizes will give the pupils an extremely good advantage in comparison to those that don't and as such will have better chances of getting better grades further up the education ladder.
Surely the cost burden should be shared more equally across our society, if indeed it is the case that country schools have smaller class sizes.

Lisha

My son's school has 84 pupils and have 3 teachers. Classes are divided between the teachers as this, Juniors & seniors, 1/2/3, and 4/5/6.

This is typical of any rural school I know .

lazygal

It depends on the school, teachers and principal. The school with the smallest class sizes near us isn't somewhere I want my children to attend for myriad reasons. I attended a very big school (38 in my class and five classes in each year), but because the school was big, it had a lot of resources that I've since realised friends of mine in small rural schools didn't have, eg IT facilities even in the 1980s. I can see how some people think smaller classes confer an advantage, but that's debatable. In a small school you could be stuck with an indifferent teacher for up to four years if JI/SI/First and Second are taken together.

BMurr

lazygal wrote: »

It depends on the school, teachers and principal. The school with the smallest class sizes near us isn't somewhere I want my children to attend for myriad reasons. I attended a very big school (38 in my class and five classes in each year), but because the school was big, it had a lot of resources that I've since realised friends of mine in small rural schools didn't have, eg IT facilities even in the 1980s. I can see how some people think smaller classes confer an advantage, but that's debatable. In a small school you could be stuck with an indifferent teacher for up to four years if JI/SI/First and Second are taken together.

Crikey, hadn't considered that angle re having same teacher for a few years. Could be a blessing or a frsutration

BMurr

lazygal wrote: »

It depends on the school, teachers and principal. The school with the smallest class sizes near us isn't somewhere I want my children to attend for myriad reasons. I attended a very big school (38 in my class and five classes in each year), but because the school was big, it had a lot of resources that I've since realised friends of mine in small rural schools didn't have, eg IT facilities even in the 1980s. I can see how some people think smaller classes confer an advantage, but that's debatable. In a small school you could be stuck with an indifferent teacher for up to four years if JI/SI/First and Second are taken together.

Crikey, hadn't considered that angle re having same teacher for a few years. Could be a blessing or a frustration

lazygal

BMurr wrote: »

Crikey, hadn't considered that angle re having same teacher for a few years. Could be a blessing or a frustration

Different teachers can spot different things too.

Lisha

BMurr wrote: »

Crikey, hadn't considered that angle re having same teacher for a few years. Could be a blessing or a frustration

There was talk this year of the infant teacher changing up to 1/2/3 . Which would have meant my son would've had the same teacher for 5out of 8years !

byhookorbycrook

Smaller schools may also lose out somewhat on SEN provision, as the DES in its wisdom (!!!) don't let schools combine resource and learning support hours so you have a number of part time teachers traveling between number of schools so that the travel time is lost to the children.

Nekarsulm

Schools qualify for an extra teacher for a set number of children . You dont get one teacher per class, unless that class has ,i think, 25 children. Lots of rural schools are anxiously trying to keep all the teacher's they have, and this often means that if , for example ten children leave 6th class, but only six start junior infants, the dept. can let a teacher go. So it is usually positively received when a family with young children move to a rural area.

strawberrie

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Smaller schools may also lose out somewhat on SEN provision, as the DES in its wisdom (!!!) don't let schools combine resource and learning support hours so you have a number of part time teachers traveling between number of schools so that the travel time is lost to the children.

Local arrangements are possible though. Two schools can arrange to share hours so neither lose out.
Having worked in both for several years my opinion is the smaller schools do provide better educational opportunities. In the large school only the class teacher may know the child. In a smaller school every adult knows every child and vice versa. They can really look out for each child in class and on yard. I am fortunate to work in a school where this warm atmosphere exists.

Kathnora

Remember that in the small rural class setting the teacher may be trying to divide herself/himself into three parts to deliver three curricula!

echo beach

There are good small schools and bad small schools just as there are good large schools and bad large schools while most schools, of whatever size, sit somewhere in the middle.
Size is no guide to quality and you need to look at other factors. The best education comes from the best teachers but the home environment is the most important factor.

Miss Merry Berry

I taught in larger schools in Dublin for 10 years and then I returned home to Donegal to teach in a small 2 teacher school in September. It was a huge culture shock at first, I could walk into a class and the children just got on with their work and there was no cheek! I do not have to raise my voice at all. However there are other challenges as was said, there is 11 pupils in the senior room and that's 4 class levels in one room. Unless you can keep 3rd/4th and 5th/6th on the same work, it's very difficult to focus on one level at the same time but I have found that the children are better independent workers up here. Children get more 1 on 1 attention as there are 2 mainstream and 2 visiting teachers so that's a ratio of 4.5:1 most days when we're all there at the same time! However I do see other disadvantages like having the same class teachers for 4 years, lack of resources in the school, not being able to do as much group work/ circle time, the school couldn't field their own GAA or sports teams, we couldn't participate in Discover Primary Science due to numbers. Also, I find children learn from each other and will have more children to befriend in larger schools. I'm weighing up where I'll send my daughter to school and I don't think it would be a small school.

echo beach

Miss Merry Berry wrote: »

, it's very difficult to focus on one level at the same time but I have found that the children are better independent workers up here.

I understand that it is very difficult for a teacher to manage four different classes at one time but, having gone to a small primary school, I would say that learning to work on your own is the one big advantage. It is a skill that stays with you all your life and its value can't be overestimated.

Moonbeam

lazygal wrote: »

It depends on the school, teachers and principal. The school with the smallest class sizes near us isn't somewhere I want my children to attend for myriad reasons. I attended a very big school (38 in my class and five classes in each year), but because the school was big, it had a lot of resources that I've since realised friends of mine in small rural schools didn't have, eg IT facilities even in the 1980s. I can see how some people think smaller classes confer an advantage, but that's debatable. In a small school you could be stuck with an indifferent teacher for up to four years if JI/SI/First and Second are taken together.

We had over 40 in ours and 4-5 of each class too.
We also had some amazing teachers and one absolute Witch.
The teachers went out of their way to put on after school activities for us and only charged an amount for the sake of charging.

I did my last year in what in my mind was a small country school , It was a single stream school with 265 kids lol

I think it all depends on the teachers ,the principal and the school management more so on the class size.

huskerdu

There are 3200 primary schools in Ireland, and very few of those are small rural schools (More than one class per teacher / small classes). Most "rural" schools are pretty standard schools.

Funding for small rural schools is dropping all the time.

As has been stated already, good schools come in all shapes and sizes.


There are loads of good small schools, but with a very small school, there is a higher risk of an underperforming teacher having a detrimental effect on the school.
Also, plenty of kids won't meet friends like them in a very small school (I,e the only girl whose a tomboy and every other girl her age is into dolls, the only boy who doesn't like sport). I know parents who have changed school to a bigger school for these reasons and it transformed a very unhappy child. Would you like to tell your child that he is stuck with the teacher who he is having a personality clash with for another 4 years.


Class sizes should be smaller in all schools but given a choice, I would prefer a standard size schools with lots of teachers, and SNAs, a large engaged parent body and a mix of kids.

afkasurfjunkie

huskerdu wrote: »

There are 3200 primary schools in Ireland, and very few of those are small rural schools (More than one class per teacher / small classes). Most "rural" schools are pretty standard schools.

Funding for small rural schools is dropping all the time.

As has been stated already, good schools come in all shapes and sizes.


There are loads of good small schools, but with a very small school, there is a higher risk of an underperforming teacher having a detrimental effect on the school.
Also, plenty of kids won't meet friends like them in a very small school (I,e the only girl whose a tomboy and every other girl her age is into dolls, the only boy who doesn't like sport). I know parents who have changed school to a bigger school for these reasons and it transformed a very unhappy child. Would you like to tell your child that he is stuck with the teacher who he is having a personality clash with for another 4 years.


Class sizes should be smaller in all schools but given a choice, I would prefer a standard size schools with lots of teachers, and SNAs, a large engaged parent body and a mix of kids.

It depends what you mean by standard school? Over half the primary schools in Ireland have a teaching principal. That means they have less than 7 class teachers and therefore more than likely have split classes or more than one class per room depending on the sizes of the classes in the school. E.g. If one class is larger than others it may have to be split or there may be 2 smaller size classes in a room.

glack

There are benefits to both and negatives too. I've worked in both environments and both are challenging in different ways. In an ideal world I'd have about 20 students in the same class. Never going to happen though!

On a personal level, I also have 2 nephews both in senior infants in different schools. One is in a single grade room with 26 classmates. The other in a multigrade room with juniors, seniors and first. Think maybe there is 16 pupils this year. These two would be very similar intelligence wise in my opinion but the child in the single grade class is out preforming his cousin by a long way (reading, writing, sums). Now this is probably in part due to the multigrade class - inevitable that they would be slower at learning their sounds etc as the teacher has three levels to teach. But also because their teacher doesn't appear to be very good (I have lots of reasons for thinking this!!) and he is stuck with her for 3 years.

abnormalnorman

Miss Merry Berry wrote: »

I'm weighing up where I'll send my daughter to school and I don't think it would be a small school.

Hi Miss Merry Berry,

Just wondering if you sent your child to a large or small school, and was it the right choice?