School loses teacher if it cuts its class size

A Dublin school with more than 30 children in one of its junior infants classes said it would lose a teacher if it attempted to reduce numbers, despite a Government commitment to an average class size of 20 by 2007.

Sixty-one junior infants, divided between two classes, began their first day at St Joseph's Boys' National School, Terenure, yesterday. They are among more than 50,000 primary school children in classes of over 30 children.

There are 501 children in St Joseph's in 16 classes, with 34 children in each of the fifth classes. Principal Matt Hume said the Department of Education policy is an active deterrent to reducing numbers.

"If the Department allows us to bring down numbers we will bring down numbers, but if we go below 499 in the school we will lose a teacher next year."

The department retention figures allow 18 teachers for a school with between 499 and 527 pupils. St Joseph's spreads this allowance between 16 class teachers, one computers teacher and one teacher for learning support in maths and music.

Mr Hume said he does not expect class sizes to be reduced to 20 for under-nines in two years' time, a reduction of more than one-third in his case, but would like to see some planning in the department for reducing numbers in the future.

"All we want to see is a commitment to start implementing a reduction. It is a big headache figuring out how to judge class sizes yearly. There is no medium plan even, to reduce the class size."

St Joseph's is an extremely popular school, with more than 200 applications received from parents each year. Its junior infants classes are already fully subscribed for the next three years.

Parents can find it hard to accept that there is no place for their child, Mr Hume said. He regularly receives representations on their behalf from politicians whose time would be better spent putting pressure on the Government for more teachers, he said.

The calm but busy atmosphere in the class of 31 four- and five-year-old boys explained the popularity of the school.

"One or two were a bit weepy, but there were a lot more tears from the parents than from the children," class teacher Emma Gormley said. While the room looked full, the children did not seem to be crowding each other.