Why we believe in smaller schools

Written by Robin Precey (HSE) and Neil Short (NASS)

Definitions

According to the National Association of Small Schools (Gristy 2022), there are few agreed definitions of small schools across the world and no nationally agreed definitions of what constitutes a small school in the UK. Definition of small primary schools in England range from:

Schools where the headteacher has a significant teaching commitment (Southworth, 2004),
Schools with fewer than 210 pupils (Church of England, 2018), fewer than 150 pupils (NAHT, 2019) fewer than 100 (Hargreaves, 2009 and DFE, 2019a). Within England there are variations used by local authorities. For example, South Gloucestershire Council (2020) define: very small schools fewer than 50 pupils, small schools fewer than 100 pupils. Small secondary schools have been defined in England as: under 200 pupils (Coopers & Lybrand, 1995) between 600-900 pupils (Harber, 1995)
In recent Government consultation in England focussed on school sparsity and size, a small school (in sparsity contexts) is defined by year group size, where average year group size is below the appropriate year group threshold. This threshold is 21.4 for primary schools, 69.2 for middle schools, 120 for secondary schools and 62.5 for all-through schools. (DFE, 2021).

An agreed basis for the definitions of small schools in each sector would facilitate comparisons of schools and the generation of data to inform policy, resourcing decisions and to draw attention to issues of rights and social justice for schools and their localities. It is argued here that agreed definitions of small with regard to school size, would be useful. Definitions (or lack thereof) have implications for the distribution of resources and hence social justice.

If you step back, it is blindingly obvious, that as a nation we need to prioritise childhood. Essential values and resultant behaviours must be learnt by all young human beings who are in the process of leaving whatever nest in which they find themselves starting life. This learning needs to be in a context of all having a sense of belonging, respect and trust – in a nutshell - relationships. If we invest in early years and childhood now, we know we will reap rich dividends later – including reduced crime rates, less dependency on social security and social services, better physical and mental health, and a happier nation. Estonia has led the way on this. We have much to learn. It is good to see the new Government prioritising childcare and early education in England.

Can we agree on a foundation stone?

Great learning is founded on great relationships. If relationships between pupils and teachers and teachers and parents/carers as well as relationships with leaders are grown and nurtured, then our children benefits and parents/carers and professional are happy and motivated.

Some worrying trends

We currently have a children’s mental health crisis in schools - and also many teachers off with stress related illnesses (see Appendix 2)

The number of children being home educated has grown phenomenally from 60,000 in 2018 to 110,000 in 2024 (DCS and Education Otherwise) and this is expected to rise to almost 125,000 in the next few years.

According to the DfE (2024), the most common reasons for withdrawing children from schools, are:

Anxiety / mental breakdown (14%)
Having unmet learning needs
Lack of support with SEND and dissatisfaction with school (13%. Including lack of understanding / adaptations for children with ADHD, ASD, PDA etc). According to the DfE there are 1.6. million SEND children in English state schools, an increase of 101,000 from 2023. In October 2024 the public spending watchdog warned that the special educational system is broken, and parents/carers have lost confidence in it.
Bullying by other pupils
Poor attendance (due to some or all of above) leading to fines – so parents feel that the only way to avoid fine is to home educate.
23% of children are home educated due to lifestyle, philosophical choices e.g. religion, cultural beliefs, rejection of our examination-based system,
Schools being too big and relationships with education staff are too impersonal.

1 in 5 children missed school for more than 10% of the time in the autumn and spring terms of 2023-4.

Many small schools are under great pressure created by our funding system (see SECTION 7).

The case for small schools

It is vital to be articulate to all about the real benefits of small schools. This is not to say that large schools may not have good relationships, but these schools often have structures, systems and processes that make it more difficult. Students especially in Key Stage 3 can have many different teachers each week and teachers especially in non-core subjects often have many students making the formation of quality relationships very difficult.

Some of the potential and often realised inter-related benefits of smaller scale are:

Better Relationships

Children and adults stand more chance of being better known trust can then also develop, leading to a greater sense of belonging- so important to human flourishing especially for children. We can only form meaningful, trusting relationships with a small number of people and if we meet and communicate with others very regularly, the relational soil is fertile for great learning. This is much more likely in smaller schools. There is much debate across the world about size of schools (and classes) and the impact on issues such as pupil achievement, pupil and staff wellbeing and on economic efficiencies (Blatchford & Russell. Much of this debate includes elements of school contexts such as community and social services, wider wellbeing and sustainability of communities and localities. Small schools are places for positive and influential relationships between schools, pupils, parents and local communities. Positive and purposeful relationships are central to successful learning, happiness and well-being (Roffey, 2012). The scale of small schools allows for the development of these relationships between learners, teachers and parents. There is also opportunity for developing relationships with the communities and localities in which the schools are situated. Moves to decrease school size in some places (for example cities in the US and the schools-within-schools movement in secondary schools in England) are informed by evidence of improved relationships and subsequent student success and wellbeing in smaller schools.

Increased professionalism of staff

If staff know each other, trust usually builds and motivation and collaboration increase. In small schools, teachers and other professionals often have to multi-task and learn new roles and take on greater responsibility. Building such professionalism has a positive effect on retention and recruitment of staff if well managed.

More responsibility for children

In a small school children, are in close proximity, in all senses, to older and younger children and as part of the vital building belonging process. They can be given greater responsibility more easily enabling democracy and student voice and participation in decision-making – important qualities for being an adult. This also enhances motivation of pupils.

Better communication

In smaller schools, the distance between the leader and the teachers and children is much shorter and communication can be and speedy, personal and avoid misinformation, misunderstandings and unhelpful grape vines. It makes the leader’s job of monitoring (especially informally and in the moment), modelling (displaying values in action) and dialogue (Foucault’s ‘Reciprocal Elucidation’ or of “bi-directional knowledge building”.). These are the ways that transformational schools respect the views of all and are not transactionally (top-down) driven (Southworth).

Schools are not just buildings - they are repositories of history and culture

To close a school is to largely wipe out the memories of many generations of people. It should never be done lightly. Despite the market-oriented policy and practice contexts in which schools are operating in the England with the focus on schools as individual commodities and away from locality and context, small schools draw attention to intrinsic links between schools and their contexts. In lived reality, schools are not separate from the social, cultural economic and geographical contexts into which they are situated whether they are in cites or in the countryside. It may be that the human scale of small schools may mean the connections with their communities and localities are more evident. The predicament, issues and challenges faced by small schools may well be universal but are perhaps surfaced more obviously through the small scale of the school and/or its locality. Much of the research on small schools in Europe includes particularly a focus on locality in context and these bodies of work (see for example Malet Fargas & Bagley, 2021 and Gristy et al, 2020) may be useful in informing English developments.

Emotional costs

Closing a school also has emotional as well as social and legacy costs. Children may have to travel much further out of their known world in a busy and not always safe world. Small schools are central to and assets for communities. Despite the disconnection of schools from their localities through market-oriented education policy, school sites remain anchored in communities and places; this is particularly clear with small schools. Small schools can be at the heart of communities. Seeing schools situated in communities, the mutual benefits of their assets become clearer. Small schools are assets to communities in many ways, including as centres for innovation, research and development in education, social and other services, sustainability, wellbeing, health and welfare such as food and warm banks. Small schools can contribute to social and economic sustainability in locality life; encouraging younger families to stay or move into these communities and providing focus for meeting and growing relationships.

Maintaining a stock of schools for changing times is good husbandry.

Pupil number forecasts are notoriously unreliable. Many facts are beyond the forecasters control such as housing policy, refugee situation, planning practice, gentrification and area reputations and changing reputations of schools. Building and opening new schools, soon after the closure of others, may not make much planning sense at all.

Closing a local school costs a lot of money

Sometimes costs are hidden and long lasting e.g. post-closure pupil transport.

Just a few examples of developing good practice in smaller schools in one part of London

Collaborative pupil events across the schools e.g. school Council meetings, fund-raising, visits, public speaking events

Opportunities for staff development quicker in smaller schools – including moving going through middle to senior leadership more quickly quick. (good for recruitment and retention)

A USP of a smaller school emphasising that we are a family – everyone knows one another – safer and secure.

Networking: Small schools are using networks to share events such as staff training, lesson planning and ideas that save money such as use of broadcast messages on WhatsApp rather than paying for text messages / SIMS add-on. Use of Google to replace bought-in programmes e.g. tracking admissions, medical needs.

Bulk buying across multiple schools to save costs electricity, gas bulk paper and IT resources.

Staffing flexibility positively affecting professionalism in hard Federations of small schools where contracts are for employment are across a Federation.

Schools are sharing SLAs (Service Level Agreements) e.g. premises management including utilities, catering, aligning SLAs for Speech & Language Therapist, IT technicians, SENCOs working across both schools.

Being able to be creative with space – e.g. art sculpture installation project

Sharing staff expertise across schools

It is important that larger schools put relationships at the heart of their values and work. Size sometimes impede or prevent this on the ground especially in Key Stage 3.

Leaders in larger schools would be wise to conduct a collective review of the state relationships and enable creativity, democracy and relationships to flourish (HSE can help with this). Educators work within a context, and this can hinder or enable them to flourish. Values need to be clear, proclaimed and lived out in day-to-day practices with integrity not tokenism. Educators(teachers) stay in schools longer where this happens. This may well lead to the need to change the structures, systems and processes in schools. Here for example are 3 Relationship Issues (RIs) that deserve attention, especially in large primary and secondary schools:

RI 1: Class size (In Estonia the national limit is 22). Yes, this needs a centrally funded initiative but there are creative measures that smart leaders can take,
RI 2: Really look at the timetable (numbers of teachers each child has per week especially KS3) and number of pupils each teacher has per week - especially in “non-core” subjects like RE). Changes to fewer teachers may need teachers developing their knowledge and skills outside their existing subject focus in secondary schools.
RI 3: Focus on Transition from Year 6 to Year 7. This is often where relationships break down and this is where pupils need explicitly taught skills in resilience and socio-emotional competencies from a young age as happens in Finland. There are many practical things that schools can and often do but structures may minimise their impact. Having well-thought through links between primary and secondary schools with staff having experience in both is essential.

“Schools within schools” is one tried and tested way forward. Do major structural changes need to be made e.g. create schools within schools in KS3 to improve the relationships? (HSE can assist with this)

Hope for large schools: secondary and primary

Ways forward

In one London borough which has a history of school collaboration, there are already agreed principles and timetable for review. Built into this is the concept that schools finding their own way with support. There is no imposed top-down master plan. There are some common actions that would be helpful using papers such as this one to aid this process with articulate, clear arguments.

Grow the ambassadors. Proclaim and share the benefits of smaller schools to all including staff and governors and parents/carers using this document and the schools’ own examples.
Fight the funding inequities together. The Government recently (2024) announced £740 million of funding for SEND places in mainstream schools.
Disseminate good practices within Tower Hamlets and London and across England and beyond (HSE and NASS and others have the tools to do this)
Lobby politicians locally and nationally.
If small schools are “Outstanding” or “Good” or have high percentage of SEN they should be given an assurance that they will not be closed unless there are true clear and agreed criteria.
Small schools are encouraged and supported to link with other small and similar schools e.g. Federations (hard or loose). Short-term funding may be needed to assist this.
Produce a regularly up-dated “Handbook” of “How to Maximise the Benefits of Small Schools” to include sharing training, lesson planning, staff, publicity and modelling some examples.
Involve all agencies - Tower Hamlets Schools Forum, School Organisation Strategy Group (SOSG) SOG, Small Schools group and the London Diocese
Maintain the focus on small schools and conduct research involving all small schools and sharing good practices e.g. with an annual conference.

The funding system for education in England is currently based on pupil-units and school-based budget management dominates the viability of schools and this has been so for many years since Local Management of Schools (LMS) a central part of the Education Reform Act (1988). The “secret garden” of the curriculum that Jim Callaghan opened leading to the Great Debate in Education (1976) has led to competition between schools for pupils (driven also by “parental choice” and greater weight and transparency given to external views of a school (Ofsted). This has resulted in the inbuilt advantages of economies of scale. The rich are on a course to get richer, and the opposite is true. Cycles of wealth and poverty are set in motion. This system needs questioning: not all countries do it this way (see Appendix 1 for more details).

The folly of a financial focus

References

Human Scale Education Human Scale Education (HSE) | Our Mission for Education Reform
National Association for Small Schools https://www.smallschools.org.uk/charter
Association of Directors of Children’s Services and Education Otherwise (2024)
Blatchford, P. & Russell, A. (2020) Rethinking Class Size: The complex story of impact on teaching and learning. UCL press, University College London
DfE (2024): Reasons for elective home education.
Foucault, M. (1997). Polemics, politics and problematisations. In P. Rainbow (Ed.), R. Hurley (Trans.), Essential works of Foucault 1954–1984 vol 1 ethics: Subjectivity and truth. New York, NY: New Press.
Gristy C, (2022): Small Schools Manifesto Briefing notes University of Plymouth
Fargas-Malet, M. & Bagley, C. (2021) Is small beautiful? A scoping review of 21st-century research on small rural schools in Europe. European Educational Research Journal 123. DOI: 10.1177/14749041211022202 journals.sagepub.com/home/eer
Levačić R (2006): Local management of schools in England: Results after six years. Taylor and Francis
National Governors Association: Federations research full report
Ovenden-Hope, T. and Passy, R. (2019). Educational Isolation: A challenge for schools in England. Plymouth: Plymouth Marjon University and University of Plymouth
Roffey, S. (2012). Developing Positive Relationships in Schools. In Roffey, S Ed. Positive Relationships: Evidence Based Practice across the World Positive. Springer.
Southworth (1999): MANAGING SCHOOLS TODAY
Southworth (2004) How leaders influence what happens in classrooms National College for School Leadership New Visions Programme Thinkpiece

Appendices

APPENDIX 1: THE FUNDING FOLLY UNPICKED

Changes in Government policy since 2010 has impacted negatively on small schools. In 2010 government supported rapid and extensive policy reform to establish a school-led system underpinned by academisation (Academies Bill, 2010). These reforms focused on creating large, efficient, effective schools with leaders that work directly with the government. The Review of Education Structures, Functions and the Raising of Standards for All by David Blunkett (2014), challenged the efficacy of academies. The report stated that it was 'undemocratic' to have individual schools 'contractually bound to the Secretary of State and free-floating from the communities they serve' (Blunkett, 2014:5). So far small schools in the evolving academy system in England appeared to have little choice but to enter formal collaborations, preferably MATs, in order to survive (Church of England, 2018).

After 2016, the policy focus changed to funding and a commitment to deliver a national funding formula (NFF) that would address what were seen as disparities in the system. The National Funding Formula (NFF) was introduced for the school year 2018-19 (DfE, 2017) and updated for 2019-20 (DfE, 2018) and again for 2020-21 (DfE, 2019b). The NFF has not offered the anticipated significant increases in funding for small schools, despite government promises. Small schools appear under the NFF for 2020-21 to receive more funds per child than larger schools. This is because a schools “lump sum” (a sum given in recognition of the fixed costs that is applied in the same way for all schools is included in the per pupil calculation rather than separately, as had been the case before in the previous two iterations of the NFF.

Small schools will also not receive a per pupil funding increase because, with the lump sum included, their per pupil funding appears over the threshold of £4,000 that triggers additional funding. Small schools can only receive the minimum possible uplift in funding of 1.84 per cent. Larger schools will get an increase of between 6 to 8.5 per cent (Moore, 2019). In addition to this, “mobility factor”, which is additional funding for small and rural schools, is also absorbed through the minimum funding guarantee (MFG) protection calculation undertaken for schools at the funding floor level, typically small schools. Any additional funds that the Department for Education believes small schools are gaining as a result of the NFF are, it appears, lost through complicated calculations and readjustments (Moore, 2019).

The Small Schools manifesto calls for changes to the NFF, with a separate threshold for small schools. Rapid policy change and reform since 2010 appears to have focused on and been designed for: large urban schools that can run autonomously through direct funding from the government (academy); and more latterly as groups of academies run by a single organisation (MAT) (DfE, 2016). School/groups of school size are important for efficiencies of scale when considered within the framework of school funding cuts generally; as noted by an Ofsted report in 2019:

The rationale for this growth [of MAT size] put forward by the government has been largely economic for example, that larger MATs will secure economies of scale, more efficient use of resources, more effective management and clearer oversight of academies. (Ofsted, 2019:21). It appears that MATs work to the detriment of small schools and have elicited the increase in small school closures. However, inclusion of small schools in MATS is variable, with some identifying the value of small schools to their communities and providing resource to support them, believing that small schools matter. (Ovenden-Hope, 2021).

APPENDIX 2

On 27th August 2019 in an article in The Guardian, the chief executive of the Children’s Society, Mark Russell, is quoted as saying ‘It is a national scandal that children’s unhappiness is increasing so quickly. We are urging the government to introduce a national measurement of children’s wellbeing so we can really listen, respond and show young people they matter.’ An article in The Week, 28th August 2020, states ‘Britain home to the “unhappiest teenagers in Europe” – but why? Russell states that “modern life” and exam pressure is driving down life satisfaction… A fear of failure and lack of purpose means Britain’s teenagers are among the unhappiest in Europe’. On 2nd September 2020 the Independent announced: ‘Almost one in five children have contemplated suicide because of bullying at school’.