Small rural schools, advantages and disadvantages

onlyroz

I went to an extremely large rural school, which took in kids from about 10 different villages - and it was great. The downside was that most of my friends lived quite a long way away, but the upside was that I got experience of a much larger community than if each village had had its own school.

ellay864

My sons went to a small primary school with mixed age classes. DS1 had 11 in his year group and shared classes with the two years above him (9 and 4 in each of those years). The teachers never struggled, kids got to learn at an advanced level and less academic kids didn't suffer as they had brilliant teaching assistants in each class. The old kids looked after younger ones, there was a really nice feel to the whole school. My kids, and most of their classmates, were ahead of many of their new classmates when they went to high school. The teacher in their final year at primary school had time to really prepare them for high school and they settled really quickly despite it being such a different environment

heretolearn_2

Of course it depends on the actual school, small can be bad, big can be good...

But I went to a small rural school, around 100 kids altogether from 5 - 11 years old, loved every minute. We learned just as much as any other kid I met at secondary school academically, and several children did the 11+ and went to grammar school. We had terrific pastoral care and there was a real family atmosphere. On Facebook/friends reunited no one has a single bad word to say about it, everyone raves about how much they loved it. It was also extremely strong on discipline.

The kids are definitely treated more as individuals. My son went to a larger school, about 500 just 5-10 year olds, the teachers seemed to change a lot, there was more bullying/parental politicking, and he didn't get much help with his dyslexia etc, they just labelled him lazy and that was that. Whereas children with problems in our little school got a lot of additional help as there was nowhere for them to just get 'lost' in the system.

YORKSHIRELASS

Both my sons have gone to a village school with an average of 90 pupils from reception through to year 6. I have got mixed feelings on this.

DS1 was doing great until he started to have serious health problems, which meant missing alot of school and caused him to suffer emotionally. The school didnt have the experience or the resouces to deal with it very well. Even worse they didnt seem to know what outside resources they could call on to help. This had serious consequences for our child as he didnt get the help he needed early enough.

DS2 has thrived at the same school. He is a bright boy and is well ahead of where he should be academically. School bought him some extra English books because he had worked his through the set in school. He loves sport and music and gets a lot of benefit from mixing with with children of different ages, which he wouldnt do in a larger school.

I believe that if your child is lucky enough to sail through primary school without any issues then a small school is a great learning and social environment. However, if problems do crop up then you need to be vigilant to make sure that the school are dealing with it in the right way.

balletshoes

Eliza wrote: »

Sorry, not exactly moneysaving but I wonder if anyone has any views on small rural schools. One of our local ones is threatened with closure and we are scouting around to see what views people have on this to maybe launch a campaign. Everyone knows that when schools close it can mean the end of small village community life and there's usually lots of history. However from the point of view of children and their education, and parents, is it better for children to go to a small school where classes are mixed ages, and maybe only a couple of teachers or to be bussed to a larger school in the local town where facilities might be better and there are lots of other children of similar ages? There seem to be arguments for and against and I wondered what parents on here think

Thanks

Liz

I went to a small rural school all the way through my primary education (3 classrooms total, 3 teachers including the head teacher, no classroom assistants). Small rural schools have a "family feel to them in my opinion, and whether you're booky, sporty, arty, musical etc, you find your place in a small school. I was not aware of any cliques amongst the parents when I was going to school there, and didn't experience any serious bullying etc (but then this was 35 years ago, when if you were getting picked on in the playground you learnt to either ignore it or stick up for yourself).

My daughter goes to a large city suburb primary school, with up to 30 kids per year, ranging from nursery all the way through to year 6. She has been at that school since she was in reception year. In my opinion, she has struggled more with mixing with different age groups because there are so many people in her own year she can mix with. She has been in a split class (2 years in one class) twice, she coped well with it first time, but now at age 9 she has taken a lot longer to settle into it.
Comparing her attitude with my own at her age, she seemed to have an issue with not knowing where she fit in her new split class, as when she was in a peer only class she knew where she was (ie 3rd, 4th etc in the group) and obviously that all went out of the window in a split group. I don't recall ever feeling that way, as I was always with other age groups in the same classroom.

Apart from that, I don't see many differences between my primary education and my daughters. She has music, art, PE, swimming lessons, there are activities she can do. I had those too.

What is markedly different is the ethnic mix in my daughters school compared to my rural school - but then again, we now live in a big city in England, I grew up nowhere near a city in the North East of Scotland. My daughter has friends from all walks of life , something that I didn't have.

balletshoes

**curlywurly** wrote: »

However, I avoided using one myself because I don't agree with mixed year groups. I think it's difficult enough for a teacher to teach 20 or 30 children of different abilities within one age group, let alone within more than one age group. My nephew, eg, is a July birthday. He was being taught in a class with children nearly two years older than him. Not a problem, he is a bright child and socially mature. My other nephew, an October birthday, was taught in a class within children nearly two years younger. This was a problem, he was often held back to the level of the younger ones - when he was 7 he was in a class with 5 year olds, some of whom could not even write their own name. So if I was going to use a school with mixed year groups I would really want to know what the teacher's strategy was to deal with this situation.

.

thing is though, with a school and a regular teacher which always deals with mixed year groups, they already have the strategies tried and tested. My daughters city suburb school jumps from peer classes to mixed year groups, and the teachers have to cope with both - it can be a struggle.

balletshoes

Eliza wrote: »

Thanks everyone, some really good points here. We are really just at the early stages of thinking about this, worries are starting to emerge before any sorts of proposals have been put forward but want to be able to think a bit about it just in case.

There is an issue about the head, as grateful has found, the leadership isn't great. she's been there a long while and I think has also become a bit complacent as well as not really keeping herself up with things. One of the issues that has emerged is that her teachers feel a bit isolated from others, without someone to really bounce ideas off, which wouldn't happen in a larger school. We feel that if the head was a better leader, she would have found ways to encourage her teachers to get together with others to share experiences. I think really she quite likes the idea of working in isolation. There are other issues connected with mixed year groups and cliqueyness, already mentioned here. Some parents have also said that she hasn't taken a strong enough lead over things like bullying and not been supportive enough when things like that have happened. A lot of the objections to closure seem to be coming from ex students, people who remember happy times at the school, maybe 50 years ago, and while valid, it's not about that, it's about the children who are there now or in the future.

I feel pulled in different directions depending on who I've spoken to, so it's really good to get views on here from people who don't have an axe to grind. Thanks.

Liz

it doesn't sound like the village school is filling you with confidence - do you have other options which might suit your child more?

devildog

My two went to a small village school and there are fors and againsts-as already pointed out. yes, most of these schools teach several year groups in one class. If your child is bright beyond their years they can either be given more challenging work in that class or even moved up into a class that typically teaches children 1/3 years older. Downside is if the child isn't the most academic he/she could be kept in a class when all their friends of the same age move up a class. Typically in a small school every child will get the opportunity to represent their school at a sports event-larger schools tend to only permit the 'best' to represent them. In a small school the teachers will know every child pretty well-not so much in a large school. If your child's year was a particularly small intake/or all the opposite sex they may not have friends of the same age or fall out with friends which can be upsetting for them.
I also found that in a small rural school they were required to do very little homework compared to larger town primary schools-I was in favour of this up until year 6 when I felt that they should be required to do more in preparation for secondary school.
Yes there may be a few cliques but I feel that that would equally apply to a larger school(only they may not be so obvious)
Another thing to consider is if you were working, the smaller school is more unlikely to make pre/post school hours provision for after school type care.
The school my two attended was shut last year due to falling numbers(even federation didn't save it) when they attended there was approx 90 in the school(some children travelled 14 + miles because it had such a good reputation) but numbers dwindled to around 20.
Personally I think parents can look too much at SATs results and not look at the bigger picture. They don't appear to appreciate that say if your have 4 children in one year and one of them isn't academically that bright then it can have a huge impact on that school's results.
As for my two, one at Uni having achieved 3 A's at A level(with a distinction and merit) and one sitting A levels. It certainly didn't do them any harm

RLH33

I went to two small rural schools when I was a child. The first was really lovely but closed down in the cuts of the early 80's. The second was bigger than the first but still small - only 3 classes.

I can't really remember much about the actual education I got, and it was so long ago it wouldn't really be relevant anyway, but what I found was that I was lumped with the same friends throughout my school years.

To elaborate, when I was at primary school there was only so many kids to be friends with so you had to get along. However when I then went to a large Comprehensive I found that I didn't have the confidence to branch out and find my own 'new' friends and found myself tagging along with the old ones. Unfortunately the old ones weren't particularly good for me, they weren't academic and I allowed myself to be pulled down by them meaning I didn't do half as well in my exams as I could have done had I tried harder.

When I left school I didn't really see them again, I went to a re-union 10 years later and had a real wake up call, they were exactly the same as they were at school, whereas I had made a different life for myself and was no longer that person who depended on them. Luckily I got a job where my colleagues realised I was capable of much more and made it possible for me to go to University so it turned out all right in the end:)

Fast forward xx amount of year and my son is in Y1 at a school with just under 200 pupils. I am really pleased that there is enough children in his class that he can pick his friends, there are those he likes and those he doesn't but there is no need for him to 'have' to be friends with everyone purely due to a lack of choice.

MX5huggy

As you say it does depend on leadership, but I don't feel this should decide the fate of a small school, if the leadership needs changing then change it don't close the school.

My primary had between 19 and 40 pupils while I was there so 2 classes, the 2 teachers got married while I was there (yes the head was the infants teachers husband). It was brilliant we all worked at our own pace, but no one could escape notice.

I don't understand this desire for facilities for Primary schools, they don't need science labs and computer suites and elaborate sports halls. We went swimming every week 1 term a year then used the village hall for the other cold term for PE and then in the playground for the summer.

I then went to the local comp, 1200 pupils and thrived there as well. Top set for maths by Christmas (the only subject setted after 1 term mixed ability).