General Education Class Sizes and Inclusion: Bigger is Not Better

Does class size affect student achievement.  For decades, this debate has been shaped by the studies conducted to measure achievement.

Math and first (native) language test scores showed a negligible effect.  As these were the only measures, the data remained static for years.

However, Dr. Peter Blatchford from University College London, and colleagues have done extensive research into other factors that can influence achievement other than math and language arts.

His team found there are many more factors to consider, such as student attainment differences in a class, classroom structure and basic pedagogy.

Universal Design for Learning is an evidence based instructional framework that works well in general education settings.  However, based on teacher feedback and on the ground experience, class sizes matter a great deal.  30 students is a very difficult number to implement effective education reforms.

Research is inconsistent due to issues like those mentioned here, but numbers for lower elementary school should ideally be no more than 15, in the hosts (not paying attention to research but to experience, probably a bad idea) opinion.  

References:

Peter Blatchford blog link:

https://www.bera.ac.uk/blog/rethinking-class-size-the-complex-story-of-impact-on-teaching-and-learning

Summary

The podcast discusses how increasing class sizes and the elimination of special day classes negatively affect inclusion for students with disabilities. The host shares personal observations about specific deficits (attention, processing, sensory, social, learning) that are exacerbated in larger classes. Research by Dr. Peter Blatchford is cited to argue that the impact of class size is complex, affecting classroom processes, teacher well-being, and broader pupil outcomes beyond just academic scores.

Key takeaway

Impact of Large Class Sizes on Students with Disabilities

Larger classes create chronic difficulties for students with disabilities, leading to gaps in learning and social skills.

The host notes from personal experience that attention and focus deficits, slow language processing, sensory overload, social skills deficits, and learning disabilities (especially in reading/writing) are common and can result in emotional dysregulation and classroom disruptions.

Eliminating mild to moderate special day classes and placing students in general education to save money worsens inclusion outcomes.

The host mentions that some districts are adopting this practice, which has negative effects that are not reflected in aggregate math and language arts scores.

Universal Design for Learning Implementation Challenges

Large class sizes put tremendous pressure on teachers to fully or partially implement Universal Design for Learning (UDL).

The host explains that UDL – teaching to strengths, gaining student buy-in, and assessing through preferred modalities – is proven effective but becomes difficult to execute when student numbers are high.

Research on Class Size: Beyond Academic Attainment

Exclusive focus on class size–attainment correlations is misleading; the real impact is on classroom processes.

Dr. Blatchford's research shows that class size is interconnected with teacher management, group work, peer relationships, task nature, and administrative activities; large classes create profound problems especially when student attainment levels are diverse.

Large classes negatively affect teachers’ well-being and retention.

The host cites research that teachers absorb negative consequences through more demanding management, extra individual support, and excessive marking in their own time.

Class size affects broader pupil outcomes such as on-task behavior, creative work, investigative skills, and independent working.

Children in larger classes, especially low-attaining students, show more off-task behavior; the effects on pupil development go beyond standardized test scores.

Thanks to Soundimage.org for the free access to the AI generated music used in this podcast (https://soundimage.org/) 

Transcript

In light of increasing class sizes in many of the 75 school districts our non-profit agency serves as a special education resource, I have become interested in the effect of a larger numbers of students in general education classes and how that affects inclusion for students with disabilities.  In addition, some districts are eliminating Mild to Moderate special day classes and placing students in general education to save money.

Over the years, the negative effects of these types of practices were thought to be negligible, math and language arts scores were not affected by numbers to any significant extent over all populations.

However, in my personal experience, students with disabilities have chronic and serious difficulty in large classes, often leading to large gaps in learning and social skills.

I believe this is true due to a number of factors that I’ll mention but not go into detail about at this time.  Albeit, these are anecdotal, but they’ve proven to be consistent over decades. 

The ones I see most frequently are attention and focus deficits, slow processing speeds in language-based areas, sensory overload, social skills deficits and learning disabilities (reading and/or writing deficits are most common).  Any of these, or a combination, can lead to emotional dysregulation that can cause serious disruptions in a classroom.

This is of particular concern due to the way research has shown how students learn best.  That is by teaching to their strengths, getting student buy-in and assessing their learning through a favored modality.

This educational framework is called Universal Design for Learning.  It has proven to be very effective.  However, larger numbers of students puts tremendous pressure on the classroom teacher to fully, or sometimes even partially, implement UDL methods.

On this topic, I’ll be reading from a blog post by Peter Blatchford, UCL Institute of Education. The blog is called, “Rethinking class size: The complex story of impact on teaching and learning”. 

Dr. Blatchford writes, “how much does class size directly affect pupil attainment? This is particularly a feature from different studies that describe ‘in seemingly definite terms the degree of association between class size and attainment. The conclusion is almost always that the class size effect is small…

‘Our large-scale research on class size, however – undertaken over more than 20 years and resulting in many publications – convinces us that the exclusive focus on the association with pupil academic outcomes is a misleading way of addressing the class-size debate and has led to false conclusions.

‘In contrast to a simple class size/attainment link, we show the complex ways in which class size is interconnected with classroom processes. It affects the balance of individual, group and whole-class teaching; classroom management of behavior; the size, number and management of groups in the class; the quality of peer relationships; the nature of the tasks set in the class; and administrative activities like marking, report writing, planning and preparation. Large classes can present profound problems for teaching, especially where there is wide diversity in pupil attainment levels.

‘Our research has also shown how large classes can affect teachers themselves, who in a sense soak up the negative consequences, for example, by more demanding classroom management, the need for extra individual support, and excessive marking in their own time. This can in turn affect their wellbeing and teacher retention more generally. 

‘Because the focus has been just on effects in relation to attainment in language arts and mathematics, it tells only part of the story about pupil ‘outcomes’. 

‘In Rethinking Class Size, we present evidence that class size also affects other aspects of pupil functioning. Children in larger classes show less on-task and more off-task behavior, and this is particularly marked for low-attaining pupils. Moreover, for many teachers the effects of class size on pupil development are more broadly defined – for example, in terms of creative work, investigative skills and independent working. 

‘Our conclusion is that results on class-size effects based simply on correlations with academic outcomes are too limited. The effect of class size on pupils is not direct, but bound up in a complex interconnected, dynamic and relational system of classroom processes.” 

I have a prior podcast about Universal Design for Learning if you are interested in learning more.