P5 - News Article
Is Deyes High Overcrowded?
In 2017 the overall number of
students enrolled in secondary school increased for the second year, reaching
2,797,000. Schools in the UK have seen a large increase in the amount of
students being enrolled in secondary education places. According to the school
census in 2016 there were 17,780 state secondary school children in 2016 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
In Deyes high there are currently
1,444 students enrolled in the secondary part of the school. On January 2012
there were 3,268 state-funded mainstream secondary schools in England, of which
1,226 had between 1,001 and 1,500 pupils meaning that Deyes High is slightly
above the average of students, (which we can assume that these numbers have
risen since the study was taken). A 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 large amounts 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” meaning that there are only an extra
7 students to what there would normally be as a couple of people appealed and “extra
places were allocated” He suggested that Deyes is “oversubscribed” suggesting
around “400 to 500 applicants” 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 maintain a large school he said that the “challenges would lie more in
the practical lessons” stating that 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”. 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 onto 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 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 students' work. However, there are many ways around
having teachers mark all their students work, some of these ways are things
like peer reviews which promote the class to think of the solution to the
problem when done correctly. More things 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 may not know
who is learning what and what needs to be re-taught 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”
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
onward. Creating a false illusion that the years were getting bigger.
