Demand for legal limit on class sizes

Published on Tuesday 16 June 2009 22:45

PRESSURE was growing last night for the Scottish Government to close a legal loophole which could derail its flagship policy of lower class sizes.

Ministers are considering a call by City of Edinburgh Council for the target limit of 18 pupils per class in the first three years of school to be made legally binding.

The move comes in the wake of a landmark legal ruling last year which allows parents to send their children to schools outside the local catchment area – up to a class-size limit of 30.

A mother won a placing request appeal to send her daughter to the primary school of her choice, despite the fact West Lothian Council had blocked the move, claiming the class group was already full.

City of Edinburgh Council officials yesterday revealed they had lost ten legal challenges from parents refused entry to the school of their choice, because the class already had too many pupils.

The parents successfully argued the legal maximum is still 30 and the council had no legal basis for refusing entry for their child. The challenges mean two primary one classes in the city have had to increase from 25 to 30 pupils.

Marilyne MacLaren, City of Edinburgh Council's education leader, warned it would be increasingly difficult for councils to keep class sizes down without legislation.

She has written to education secretary Fiona Hyslop demanding an urgent review on what she called a "legal loophole".

Ms MacLaren said: "The door is wide open for legal challenges and this will inevitably lead to classes growing in size."

Council officials revealed they have received 29 parental appeals in the past two weeks and is expecting another 40 over the summer.

Where appeals have been rejected, class sizes will remain at 25.

East Renfrewshire Council has already announced it is abandoning the class size target because of similar legal challenges.

Recent government statistics showed 14 councils had made no progress on the SNP administration's vow to reduce class sizes to 18 in the first three years of primary education.

Ronnie Smith, general secretary of Scotland's biggest teaching union, the EIS, at the union's annual conference earlier this month, called for legislation.

And he accused some councils of "consciously" and "deliberately" failing to reduce class sizes, considering themselves "bigger than the government when it comes to running schools".

A Scottish Government spokeswoman said it was considering whether the law needed to be changed.

She said: "We need to ensure legislation enables local and national government to set class size limits, and supports the rights of parents to make placing request."