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Some tutor group sizes have grown across some of the States secondary schools since changes began to be made to the structure of education across Guernsey.
Responding to a series of Rule 14 questions, posed by Deputy Gavin St Pier (pictured top, inset right), the Committee for Education, Sport and Culture has provided graphs showing how many students are in how many tutor groups across the four High Schools.
Due to the way some of the schools are managed, and the students they cater for, Les Voies and Les Murier have not been included, nor has Alderney's St Anne's school.
The Grammar School (Les Varendes), Les Beaucamps, St Sampson's and La Mare de Carteret were all included.
The reasoning behind the initial set of questions was to "better understand the structure of the island's education service" with details requested about the number of non-teaching staff and the way the schools are run.
Speaking at the time he posed the questions, Deputy St Pier said: “I’ve had a number of members of the public, parents predominantly, but also those working in the education service, primarily just expressing some concerns and questions over the last couple of months, and I’ve really just collated those.”
You can see his full list of questions in a social media post below:
In answering the questions earlier this month, Deputy Andrea Dudley Owen (pictured top, inset left) asked for more time to prepare data on the size of classes, and the number of students in tutor groups.
The Bailiff, Richard McMahon, agreed to a request from the Committee for another 15 days to reply to the following two questions:
Deputy St Pier has since received the data he asked for.
Yes, recently received…. https://t.co/mrQun8EIsb pic.twitter.com/sZYO5qbshF
— Gavin St Pier (@gavinstpier) September 25, 2022
Within the information given in response to Deputy St Pier we have learned a number of facts:
Core Subjects
Core subjects were defined by ESC for this purpose as being English, Maths, Science (including general science, combined science, triple science, biology, chemistry, and physics), and also any subject which "by means of a formal qualification" or by "time served" or by "special interest" a teacher is able to teach.
Explaining this, ESC said:
"Although teachers will likely spend more of their timetable teaching one subject, it is usual in many education systems for teachers to spend some of their timetable teaching the other subject(s) in which they have specialist knowledge (as opposed to teaching in a subject where they have no specialism or special knowledge/interest).
"This not only allows teachers to maintain competence in each of their subject specialisms, but it also ensures the most efficient use of their teaching time. For example, if a school had three lessons of teaching in a particular subject outstanding after its subject specialists’ teaching time was allocated, it would not make any practical sense to recruit an additional teacher for those hours, so they would be allocated to a teacher who has an additional specialism in that subject and who has capacity within their own teaching timetable.
"This is consistent with the Education Strategy’s commitment to making the most efficient and effective use of public resources to provide learning environments that promote excellence and facilitate individual creativity and community prosperity."
Through using this definition of core subject and specialist teacher, ESC was able to confirm that there are 1,278 core subject lessons being taught each week across the four States-maintained secondary schools.
Of those 1,278 lessons, 22.5* lessons (1.8%) are being taught by a teacher who is not a subject specialist. (*The .5 lesson results from a two-week timetable with different lesson allocations in each week)
All of those 22.5 lessons are in Years 7, 8 and 9.
All core subject GCSE lessons are timetabled to be taught by subject specialists.
Tutor Group Sizes
Aside from La Mare de Carteret, which operates a vertical tutor group system, the other High Schools were compared to each other.
Across Years 7, 8, 9, and 10 at Les Varendes, tutor group sizes will have increased by an average of 20 to 23, 16 to 25, 20 to 21, and 19 to 21, respectively, between school years 2021/22 and 2022/23.
The last selective cohort at the Grammar School are currently in Year 11 and their tutor group size has stayed static at 19 between the two years.
Most tutor group sizes at Les Beaucamps have also increased, with Years 7, 9, and 10 seeing sizes increase from 22 to 27, 22 to 26, and 20 to 22 respectively.
Year 8 tutor group sizes at Les Beaucamps have shrunk from an average of 26 to 22, while year 11 has decreased from 25 to 19.
More tutor groups have decreased in size at St Sampson's, with Year 7 shrinking from an average of 25 to 23, Year 9 from an average of 25 to 22, and Year 11 down from 25 to 21. Year 8 tutor group sizes have grown from an average of 22 to 25, and Year ten from 21 to 25.
La Mare de Carteret has an average tutor group size of 18, down from 19 a year previously.
Teaching Group Sizes
Average teaching group sizes vary between the four schools from the lowest of 16 at the Grammar School, to the highest of 28 at St Sampson's.
The number of teaching groups across the High Schools varies from 22 at the Grammar School to 35 at St Sampson's High.
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