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Could maximum class sizes of 15 pupils significantly improve our children's school life?

teacher and pupils - Getty
teacher and pupils - Getty

To support social distancing, when children slowly begin to return to the classroom next month, they will be in staggered groups of up to 15 pupils, half the usual government limit for primary class size.

The Government has stated an "ambition" for all primary school children in England to spend a month back at school before the summer holidays, in its updated guidance for the next stage of managing the Covid-19 pandemic.

Classes will be divided into groups of no more than 15 pupils, who will not mix with other children during the day. Pupils are supposed to stay two metres apart from each other and all adult workers—though the guidance acknowledges that younger children are unlikely to maintain this space—and follows the return-to-school plan employed last month in Denmark.

Under these revised plans, which the National Education Union has rejected as “reckless”, parents who choose not to send their children to school will not face fines.

What impact will smaller classes have on education?

After the most disrupted school term in living memory, many educators also expressed relief at the prospect of a return to school. Some have wondered whether these smaller classes may be a silver lining of the fallout from the pandemic.

It is easy to muster arguments in favour of reducing class size: better teacher-to-student ratios lead to more individualised instruction, a lower likelihood of disruption, and higher teacher morale. Some argue that small classes benefit the youngest learners, in particular.

For these reasons, class size, says Timo Hannay, founder of the education data analysts SchoolDash, is a subject parents and teachers are keen to discuss.

But if you’re looking purely at how children perform academically, class size has little effect. “Having a great teacher is really important," says Hannay. "Having a small class makes very little difference in attainment,” he explains.

Hannay cites as evidence the work of John Hattie, professor of education and director of the Melbourne Education Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia, who conducts meta analyses of global research on education. In his book Visible Learning, Hattie concludes that the effect of class size “could be considered small especially in relation to many other possible interventions—and certainly not worth the billions of dollars that is required to reduce the number of children per classroom," he concludes, adding: "The more important question, therefore, is ‘Why are the effect sizes from reducing class size so small?’”

One reason, Hattie says, is that teachers adopt the same teaching methods regardless of class size.

What if we look beyond exams?

There are loads of things that we don’t measure or that we find difficult to measure, says Hannay—for example children’s sociability or how articulate they are. What we tend to measure is how they do on tests, without actually asking ourselves whether this is the only important thing.

He says that there has not been a great deal of work on the effect of class size on how happy children are, how well-rounded, how successful they are in their future lives, whatever the measure of success may be.

But it is tempting to wonder whether smaller class size might have benefits beyond the purely academic.

With smaller class sizes, “there could be more feedback, more interaction with students and between peers, more diagnosis and so on. This may indeed be the case,” Hattie writes, “but the evidence so far indicates that when class sizes are smaller, if these influences are implemented there is still no great difference in student outcomes.” He notes again that if teachers are not changing their strategies even in smaller groups, you might not expect a radical difference. Perhaps only by changing the ways teachers are trained will we see significant difference in outcomes based on class size.

Intriguingly, a 2016 study by School Dash suggests that certain subjects may benefit more from smaller classes than others.

In general, private schools tend to do better than state schools, about one grade per student per subject. But private schools also start out with more academically able students on average.

Comparing A-level results between private schools and state schools, after controlling at GCSE level, Hannay concluded: “about 90% of the difference in A-Level attainment appears to be explained by students' ability rather than educational effectiveness.”

But interestingly, while differences in attainment at private and state schools were almost negligible in analytical subjects like maths and the sciences, the gaps were broader in subjects like English literature and history, suggesting that private schools pupils were benefiting from smaller classes in more discursive subjects.

That may help explain why independent schools do preferentially better in those subjects but not in science and maths.

Do meta-analyses tell the British story?

It is also difficult to test the impact of cultural variation on class size. For example, large Chinese class sizes and high levels of academic achievement are often cited. But, as with the spread of coronavirus, it is important to take cultural behaviour into account. Just as the group mentality and protective preventive actions taken by Japanese or Taiwanese in the effort to contain the spread of Covid-19 may have played a role in keeping rates of infection low in those places, as compared to the less protective behaviours of members of the British public, so, too, attitudes in the classroom may have an influence on whether class size helps or hinders learning.

“Look at Japanese or Korean cram schools,” says Hannay. “They tend to have enormous class sizes but rockstar teachers. If you have an amazing teacher, you’ll learn. There are different cultural expectations. They’re deliberately teaching to the test.”

What will be the impact of smaller classes in Britain?

As a parent of two children in the British state system, I am interested to see whether smaller classes will have an impact on my children's enjoyment of school—if they're actually allowed back this year.

The most frequent complaint lodged by my son, who is in Year 2, about school is that he's never called on when he raises his hand—and he has a relatively small class size of 25. Surely that might change.

Earlier this year I accompanied my daughter's Year 4 class of 24 pupils on a school trip, and was reminded of the outrageously persistent ability some children have to be disruptive.

The lockdown and resulting learning loss will widen the attainment gaps for pupils, the Government and education experts have warned. Schools will be under great pressure to reduce that over the next year. But I hope that this period also will shift the focus of parents, children and teachers away from exam attainment and towards the broader skills that kids should also hone at school. And I wonder whether smaller classes and more individual attention will help young people to develop their debate skills, their social skills and their ability to challenge the assumptions of others. And these, perhaps, will benefit them more than an A*.