P5 - News Article Draft #2

P5  - News Article      

Is Deyes High Overcrowded?

In 2017 the overall number of students enrolled in secondary school increased for the second year running, reaching 2,797,000. Schools in the UK have seen a large rise in the volume of students being enrolled in secondary education places. According to the school census in 2016 there were 17,780 state secondary school children being taught in classes with 36 or more pupils; this has been the largest amount of students in this position ever recorded. In comparison to the 2011 census the number was only 6,107 which has almost tripled. Students being taught in classes of 36 students or more is a large problem for many reasons, such as the cost to train and hire teachers, cost for new facilities and equipment as well as the stress on teachers and students.

In Deyes High there are currently 1,444 secondary school students on roll. In January 2012 there were 3,268 state-funded mainstream secondary schools in England, of which 37.5% had between 1,001 and 1,500 pupils. Deyes High falls slightly above average, (we can assume that these numbers have risen since the study was taken).

At recent interview with Mr Ellis who is responsible for creating Deyes High’s timetables, he was asked about how the school is coping with the rising number of students in the North West and the Whole of the UK. He said that “generally the year groups have around about 235 students” and that “currently year 7 have about 242”. This showed an increase of 7 students due to successful appeals “extra places were allocated” He confirmed that Deyes is “oversubscribed” attracting “400 to 500 applicants each school year”. However, some of the sixth form students believed that the school was overcrowded. In a survey of 20 people, 17 believed that the school was overcrowded, whilst only 3 said that it was fine.

When Mr Ellis was asked about the cost of maintaining a large school he said that the “challenges would lie more in the practical lessons”. Subjects such as “P.E, Science and Technology” are harder to maintain as there is a certain “health and safety aspect”. Health and safety has to be “appropriate”. “There’s so much going on you might have a circular saw, might have other things” Showing that the health and safety of the students has to be considered heavily in these subjects.

Another problem that he talked about was that there are “only so many seats, only so many Bunsen burners, so many gas stations” Showing that there is only a certain amount of resources. One example that he gave was that “there might only be 30 computers in a room” and that you have to “make adjustments” one of the adjustments made this year was that the room “A22 has been converted into a computer room, because we knew that that was something that was going to happen, so now that we can accommodate all those classes”

Another problem with having larger classes is that the teaching and learning may suffer, many sources suggest that teachers are being overburdened. One teacher said that “I have too much homework to mark. It becomes almost impossible to give effective feedback for everyone." This certainly shows the strain that teachers have when marking and reviewing work. Teachers feel a responsibility for checking all of their student’s work. However, there are many ways around having teachers mark all their students work, some of these ways are things like peer reviews which encourage the class to think of the solution to the problem independently and teach the students group work, whilst also freeing up time for the teacher to focus on helping students who are struggling. More strategies like this will be implemented more often as we see the growing number of students increase in the UK.

One of the major problems when it comes to larger classes is that the teachers find it difficult to keep on top of assessment and what topics need to be consolidated as interaction with each and every student may be impossible. When talking to Mr Ellis about the problems with large class sizes he said that “instead of having 30, 30, 30 in the top three sets and having 20 in the set 4 group you might have more like 27 in the set 4 group” and that there is “little difference between having 20 and 27 students in a group”. Some teachers may not agree with this opinion, as it could depend on the subject or the teacher. Subjects like Maths are generally quicker to mark and assess, whereas subjects such as English can be quite time consuming.

Overall the reason that College @ Deyes students believe that the lower years are larger is that primarily the class of 2016 and 17 were smaller year groups than normal so it seemed that there was a larger disparity, due to the lack of the baby boom until 2002 and onwards. The baby boom created a false illusion that the school years were getting bigger.