Bigger classes feature in the doom-laden predictions of many LEAs faced with making cuts, but this would not be an option in Scotland. There, class sizes are subject to long-standing limits which are spelled out in teachers’ contracts.
These limits were won by the Scottish teaching unions 20 years ago as an improvement in members’ conditions of service, but they have had the additional benefit of ensuring that local authorities maintain staffing levels whatever the financial pressures.
The normal maximum in a primary class is 33 pupils. In the first two years of secondary the same limit applies, and it is reduced to 30 for older classes. Practical classes are limited to 20 pupils.
An upper limit is also laid down in the contract - 39 in primary and lower secondary, 34 in the upper secondary. But such larger classes are rarely to be found because teachers can refuse to take more than the normal maximum.
That is not to say that there is absurd rigidity if, for example, an extra pupil should enrol. The Educational Institute of Scotland, the union representing four-fifths of teachers, states that a headteacher’s request to a teacher to take a class of between the normal and upper limits should not be unreasonably refused, and anyway teachers can voluntarily work beyond the contractual limits.
Even although Scottish schools will all move to devolved management by next year, there will be no scope to make savings by reducing teacher numbers because the class limits will still apply.
