ABSTRACT
What’s the answer to the class size conundrum? Parents and teachers think class size matters. Some policymakers and researchers say it doesn’t. Younger children do better in small classes. Previous research says older pupils don’t. But new research suggests that children get less attention in a large class, behave worse and spend more time chatting to their friends than listening to their teachers. And teachers get more stressed. If we helped teachers to teach better and cut class sizes, the effect on pupils’ progress might be remarkable – and we might retain more teachers.
Also, in this chapter, a good teacher, compared with even an average one, can make a huge difference to how a child performs in just one year at school. The best way of teaching a child to read - it all starts at home. Homework is less important than you think and too much may be bad for you. And finally, find out why getting your sums wrong is good for you. And why 10/10 is not good enough.
