§ Mr. WillisTo ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills which local education authorities have classes of more than 30 pupils for five, six or seven-year-olds. [81084]
307W
§ Mr. Miliband[holding answer 18 November 2002]: The information requested is shown in the following table.
308W
Local education authorities with classes of 30 or more pupils—January 2002 Total all classes Of which: number of classes with more than 30 pupils1 Barnsley 278 4 Bedfordshire 531 7 Birmingham 1,341 7 Bolton 354 2 Bracknell Forest 124 1 Bradford 627 9 Brent 291 1 Buckinghamshire 606 7 Bury 245 3 Cambridgeshire 660 11 Camden 130 1 Cheshire 863 9 Cornwall 526 5 Coventry 398 1 Croydon 384 1 Darlington 128 1 Derbyshire 964 14 Doncaster 405 4 Dorset 462 1 Dudley 389 2 East Riding of Yorkshire 391 5 East Sussex 521 2 Enfield 344 1 Essex 1,622 25 Gateshead 234 1 Gloucestershire 665 1 Greenwich 272 1 Hackney 209 4 Hammersmith and Fulham 107 1 Hampshire 1,543 7 Haringey 266 1 Havering 294 2 Herefordshire 222 2 Hertfordshire 1,285 9 Hillingdon 329 4 Hounslow 252 1 Islington 189 4 Kensington and Chelsea 85 2 Kent 1,707 4 Kingston upon Thames 151 1 Knowsley 245 1 Lancashire 1,456 4 Leeds 889 4 Leicester 386 3 Leicestershire 811 9 Lewisham 291 2 Liverpool 595 5 Luton 257 2 Manchester 566 1 Milton Keynes 283 8 Newcastle upon Tyne 293 1 Norfolk 979 3 North East Lincolnshire 213 6 North Lincolnshire 189 1 North Yorkshire 768 5 Northamptonshire 914 3 Northumberland 367 11 Oldham 319 2 Peterborough 232 3 Reading 134 1 Redbridge 288 2 Redcar and Cleveland 199 1 Richmond upon Thames 177 1 Rotherham 354 2 Salford 294 1
Local education authorities with classes of 30 or more pupils—January 2002 Total all classes Of which: number of classes with more than 30 pupils1 Sandwell 403 1 Sheffield 605 3 Shropshire 322 1 Solihull 292 1 Somerset 603 2 South Gloucestershire 354 1 Southampton 254 1 Southwark 340 2 Staffordshire 1,122 8 Stockport 354 1 Stockton-on-Tees 260 2 Stoke-on-Trent 311 2 Surrey 1,177 4 Sutton 174 1 Swindon 255 4 Telford and Wrekin 217 1 Tower Hamlets 231 2 Trafford 269 1 Wakefield 392 7 Wandsworth 216 1 Warrington 278 3 Warwickshire 624 6 West Berkshire 173 2 West Sussex 881 5 Westminster 103 1 Wiltshire 551 6 Windsor and Maidenhead 127 1 Wirral 455 2 Wolverhampton 321 2 Total 43,557 325 1 About 70 per cent. of these classes included pupils that were admitted as "excepted" pupils under the Education (Infant Class Size) Regulations 1998. Exceptions include classes with pupils admitted outside the normal admission round, after an admission appeal or because of a statement of Special Educational Needs. Also, classes where pupils are temporarily present from a special unit and classes for other teaching sessions such as games, music or drama. Source:
Annual Schools' Census
Infant class size information for September 2002 was published on 20 November 2002 in the statistical first release entitled, "Infant Class Sizes in England: September 2002". This showed that nationally there were 307 classes of more than 30 pupils of which 288 were recorded as acceptable under the Education (Infant Class Sizes) Regulations 1998. These September figures are not directly comparable with those in January, because of seasonal effects such as pupils entering school in January. Corresponding local education authority level figures are not yet available but will be published in due course on the DfES statistical website www.dfes.gov.uk/statistics