Small rural schools, advantages and disadvantages

*Louise*

I was in a class of 8 at primary school, it was a great time and I had a lot of focused attention so was ahead of my age group by the time I moved on to high School

My DS's are at the same school now - although is has grown a bit (they are in classes of 14 now) I still like the idea of them getting plenty of the teachers time and focused attention. Plus the sense of community and everyone knowing everyone else in the school is lovely.

moggylover

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

Both my sons went to a small rural school (and I mean small, only around 30 pupils between infants and juniors:eek: and two mixed age group classes: one infants and one juniors). It was a lovely family feeling to the place, but if I had their time again I probably would not choose it.

Firstly, same problem with the head-teacher. There a long time, well past his sell-by date, and kids were often just left to work their way through their maths/science/english/welsh course books whilst he pottered on his computer or talked on the phone (albeit that could have been admin work). Whilst the infant school teacher was wonderful, and the part-timer great, the headmaster taught the junior class and both my sons fell a bit behind and I was then left with the dilemma of either disrupting them and moving them or seeing it through. Since we also lost my mum during that period I left them there and I suspect that in the circumstances it wasn't entirely the wrong choice, but both of them had gone from being working well ahead of their year in infants, to way below year for DS1 and only just on year for DS2.

Fortunately DS2 is very bright and is now streets ahead again at senior school and DS1 has managed to improve greatly as well in a better academic environment but I regret him not having a better education in junior school as he did struggle a bit when he first went up.

Wasn't all that cliquey - but it didn't take more than one difficult or overly-pushy parent to make a bad atmosphere either:(

It was, however, very nice for the kids to go from the nursery, into another classroom where they already knew the teacher for infants, and then through to another classroom and a teacher they already knew for juniors and I think this made the transitions easier.

Good luck with your choices, I'm not sure either would be right or wrong or best and worst: they are just very different:)

Janepig

DD and DS go to a primary school with nearly 500 pupils (age 3-11) and it's an amazing school, with applications exceeding places year on year, such is its reputation. The headteacher is fantastic (although were the previous head still there then my two wouldn't have gone there!) and the children seem to mix well through all ages - DS is in reception and he's got lots of "buddies" who are much older than him who he loves playing with in the big yard, and the older children in general are encouraged to help and befriend the little ones. Can't say I've heard of any bullying going on, any nonsense seems to get nipped in the bud pretty quickly, and the children are all very polite and pleasant.

They also excel at sports, but then that's not surprising as they run trials for every competition and can cherry pick the best (DD is on the cross country team). Personally I've got no problem with this - if my two are good enough to make the team then great, if not, well that's a life lesson learned.

All in all I'm more than happy with the school, even with the large class sizes (DS has 34 in his class - 67 in his year). Although I think the school benefits from excellent leadership as much as anything else.

Jxx

Frith

MX5Huggy - did you go to my primary school??? We had 19 people when I was there, 2 classes with married teachers and we went swimming on the bus each Friday and used the village hall for PE!

You don't come from Worcestershire, do you....?