Ideal size primary school in Powys would be around 150 pupils

By the time school primary schools have been reorganised, a councillor hopes they will all have around 150 pupils.

This answers a question that has been bugging councillors who have looked at primary school closure proposals of when will the closure proposals stop?

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday, November 9, the councillor driving the school closure programme forward, Cllr

Phyl Davies told councillors how many pupils are needed in a school in his view.

This came during a discussion on the future of Llanbedr Church in Wales primary school near Crickhowell.

At last week’s Learning and Skills committee members looked at the proposal for Llanbedr and  were not convinced that the argument in favour of closing the school had been made.

Then,  Cllr Jake Berriman believed that the small rural schools were being targeted for closure for purely “cost” reasons.

He asked at what point would: “this conveyor belt of school closures” stop and at what point the council has made “acceptable savings.”

Cost per pupil at Llanbedr is currently £6,010.

If five more children came to the school after Christmas, which is expected, the roll would go up to 54, and the cost would drop to around £4,300.

This would take it from the ninth most expensive school in the county to around 48/49 of 78 primary schools.

Education officers had also pointed out that the Llanbedr headteacher, as well as leading the school – had extensive teaching commitments.

Cllr Davies believed that designing the new curriculum for small schools would see an “incredibly high workload” put on two or three teachers, especially when a headteacher is in front of class.

Cllr Davies said: “When reference has been made of what size a school should be, it would be in a position where a teacher that could be in charge or lead an area of learning experience .experience

“If you look at class sizes this gives you a figure of the middle hundreds as an ideal a point to get to.

“I’m saying this as a personal opinion not a professional one, I’m not an educationalist, but common sense does come into some of this and it’s important to relate to that.”

The list of 78 primary schools shows that there are 27 with rolls of 130 pupils or more and 18 of `150 or over.

The Welsh Government defines a small school as one of 91 pupils or under.

Of the list of 78 Powys primary schools, there are 38 with rolls of 91 pupils or under.