§ Mr. AllanTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Employment what the average class size was for classes taught by one teacher in(a) 1996 and (b) 2000 for (i) pupils in Key Stage 1, (ii) pupils in Key Stage 2, (iii) primary schools and (iv) secondary schools in (1) Great Britain and (2) each parliamentary constituency. [126175]
§ Ms Estelle Morris[holding answer 19 June 2000]: Class size information covering English parliamentary constituencies for 1996–97 and 1999–2000 has been placed in the Library.
Provisional national estimates of Key Stage 1 classes for January 2000 were recently published in a Statistical First Release "Class sizes in maintained schools in England: January 2000 (15/2000)" on 12 April 2000.
National figures for infant class sizes in September 1999 were published in Statistical First Release "Infant class sizes in England (2/2000)" on 21 January 2000.
173WThe Government are well on target to deliver their pledge to limit infant classes to 30 pupils. At the same time, average class sizes in maintained primary schools went down for the second year running—from 27.5 in January 1999 to 27.1 in January 2000, after rising for the previous 10 years. The average size of junior classes also fell, from 28.4 in January 1999 to 28.3 in January 2000. Maintained secondary classes are already much smaller than primary, with around five fewer pupils on average. The pupil:teacher ratio in secondary schools in January 2000 was 17.1. It is worth bearing in mind that secondary classes rose steadily under the previous Government—in 1998 the figure was 19.9; and that in the Budget, secondary headteachers received between £30,000 and £50,000 each to spend as they choose. If they spent it on teachers, they could reduce the secondary pupil:teacher ratio by 0.4.
For information on class sizes in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, I refer the hon. Member to the Secretaries of State for Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.