How many students?

[Astrid]

I think our school is about 120 students. The other choices were 40 and 20, way too low for my liking.

So far I am finding the size quite good. The principle seems to know all the kids and has an amazing memory for parents. There is a lot of cross over with classes, lots of buddy systems in place. Most of the grades have a full class, plus enough for a combined grade class. Still unsure how I feel about combined grades. DD1 is Prep in a Prep/1 which seems to suit her for now. There is often times where just the Preps do stuff together whilst the grade 1's get together. Seems to be a real sense of community, but that could be coming from being a country school.

Main downside I can see to it not being a huge school is the lack of before and after school care. Surprisingly not enough demand, but that could also be due to the country families.

[Trillian]

There are about 280-290 at our school. I think it is a good size really. I went to a really small Central School (K-12) and each year we only had about 10 in our class which was too small in hindsight. That school probably had 120 students by the time I left. I think our school is great - not too large so you don't know everyone but not too small that your children aren't challenged enough among their peers.

[kitten2b]

there are 140 in my daughters school which is the smallest primary school in Canberra I think, I love it being that small there is a real community feeling.

[Phteven]

there are 140 in my daughters school which is the smallest primary school in Canberra I think, I love it being that small there is a real community feeling.

We've got about 120 including the special kids.

We've been looking at some schools in Sydney and they seem so enormous compared to our current school

[AliBaby]

We have 720 kids and are a P1 school. There is over 100 in each year group! It is big abut we have massive grounds to use. If a school hasnt got the grounds to play in (and different areas to separate children so they all arent in the same area) then there become more playground problems. So this to me is key to a big school being successful. I actually love that our school is big. We have a fabulous parent body and with over 40 staff members who are all fabulous as well as an awesome Principal, it makes for a great school! Biggest downfall is that as a teacher I only know about half of the student population.

FWIW I have worked at the other end of the scale in a school of 110kids and I loved that for what its worth. All the kids played together as they kind of didnt have a choice. You would see a game of soccer that would have kids from yr 1,2,3,4,5 and 6! The school didnt have as many facilities and only had 7 staff members and that included the Principal who was also on class part time but it all gelled together nicely.

[*Ang*]

We have 240 kids in our school - K-6, 30 in each class. It is a great little school with a fantastic community feel about it, you know almost everyone and you definitely know all the parents in your children's classes. Other friends of mine whose children attend larger schools have no idea who the parents are and I don't really like that idea at all.

My only concern, and it is a minor one, is that there isnt quite enough variety for playmates. Eg by luck in DD's class there are only 8 boys - so those 8 boys will be with each other for 8 years - what if they dont like each other? Our school has a very low turn over and a very high waiting list, it is not often people move.

But would I change schools because of size - absolutely not.

[Purple Penguin]

There's about 120 kids at DD1's school, as others have mentioned with the smaller schools, I love the community feeling that a small school can have.
I reckon anything over 200 is a big school, but having said that when I was in primary school we had 16 students in the whole school by the time I was in grade 6, now that's small.