Junior infants class sizes

scaryfairy

Hi, what is the average/acceptable size for junior infants? Living in South County Dublin. Can it really be up to 30 pupils for one teacher? Or is there a teacher assistant present as well?
Thanks

strawberrie

I've taught 33 with no assistance and I'm not even in Dublin!

scaryfairy wrote: »

Hi, what is the average/acceptable size for junior infants? Living in South County Dublin. Can it really be up to 30 pupils for one teacher? Or is there a teacher assistant present as well?
Thanks

scaryfairy

strawberrie wrote: »

I've taught 33 with no assistance and I'm not even in Dublin!

Fair play to you!

strawberrie

That's just reality out there. Add in a mix of children from different backgrounds, some with no English, some with undiagnosed SEN in that number. At the end if the day this is just what teachers have to do.

Moonbeam

We don't really have teaching assistants in Ireland . I would think 30-32 is normal .

uck51js9zml2yt

My son in in senior infants with 12 in his class and an SEN.- in Dublin.

byhookorbycrook

My first ever class was 42 juniors. I have never recovered Yes, sadly the average in non Deis schools is 30. the DES use SEN, special school teachers and admin principals to make the stats for the PTR sound better.

Owryan

I have 2 kids in different senior infants classes at the moment. It is a DEIS school. There are 19 kids in each class with a teacher and an assistant.

With all the talk of large class sizes I count myself blessed that they are in small classes

scaryfairy

Oh dear. That's quite a number... I mean 30ish... at the moment he is doing is ecce year, and they have 2 teachers for 16 kids! Would be quite a change to go 1 teacher per 30 kids...
Thanks a mill for the responses

byhookorbycrook

Various governments make noise about reducing the PTR for infants every so often. But they never do.

Moonbeam

Our school got an extra teacher this year so split JI in to 3 classes instead of 2 but they will be back to normal next year.

evolving_doors

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

Various governments make noise about reducing the PTR for infants every so often. But they never do.

Aye, be careful when a politician tells you they are increasing the number of teachers for next year... the PTR stays the same but the number of pupils also rises with the baby boom and all that.

Is there any stats on 'the peak' of the baby boom? When will it start to decline?

grind gremlin

We have 32 in both our infant classes. BOM pay for one part time classroom assistant, 3 hours a day, shared between two classes.

wirelessdude01

Also when the govt is calculating the PTR they include non teaching principals and vice principals and also learning support and resource teachers. Totally distorts the figures.

lazygal

I went through school without ever being in a class of fewer than 36, sometimes 38, and we had some without English as a first language and with special needs too. I couldn't get over how small the secondary school classes were! 30 is totally standard for any schools near us.

scaryfairy

Thanks for all the feedback. I don't remember how many of us were in primary school, (long long time ago ..) probably just as many, and was grand. Just find starting age very young, we would have had 2 more years of kindergarten type of education before going to "Big school", with 1 teacher + 1 sort of TA for 24 or so kids...

lazygal

A child doesn't have to be in school until 6. The extension of the ECCE scheme has meant children tend to be a bit older entering school too.

scaryfairy

lazygal wrote: »

A child doesn't have to be in school until 6. The extension of the ECCE scheme has meant children tend to be a bit older entering school too.

Thanks that's a good point.
Our son will be 4 yr 10 months old in September '17 and everybody is talked to (schools and other parents) said that he can only really start next year, 2018 would be too late. So that's not really an option for us, but looks like we found another solution.