large class sizes

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Home : 2004 : February : 8

large class sizes
By Cathy-Dee

Unfortunately there are no laws as far as I know anywhere that deal with class sizes. Some school divisions or even States or Provinces have guidelines that they try to adhere to most of the time, but some classes do get
missed along the way.
Personally I feel K to 2 classes shouldn't be larger than 20 students.
Grades 3 to 6 shouldn't be larger than 25 students.
But a lot depends on where you live. For example if yours is the only school in an area and all your classrooms are filled and being used - there are few options left. Where would a second class of Kindergarten students be put?
I would

talk to your administrator about ensuring you have aide time to help you with these numbers. If there are empty class rooms in your school you may want to see if your school division does have guidelines as to class sizes and if they do you might be able to encourage your administrator to fight for a second teacher and classroom to split the class into two more reasonably sized classes.

Unfortunately most things including class size comes down to money. If the school division has the money they will usually go for the smaller class sizes, but if they do not have the money then it is the teacher's who have to try to make things work the best we can with larger classes.