Class sizes have fallen dramatically in Bradford but the district still has more young children being educated in infant classes of more than 30 than anywhere else in the region and in most of the country.

The Government today pledged more than £1.3 million of a £150 million pot to Bradford Council to pay for an extra 16 teachers. The cash includes £625,000 put in last September which paid for 50 more teachers.

But, despite the cash, it is anticipated that 3,083 children will be in classes of more than 30 by next September although that is a massive improvement on January last year when the number was 6,794.

Francis Marslen-Wilson, head of the Council's education policy unit, said the number of children in large classes of more than 30 would decline further.

A central strand of the schools review was to reorganise provision according to population and most of the proposed primary schools are planned to have intakes in multiples of 30.

If the review gets Government approval, Mr Marslen-Wilson said numbers in large classes would quickly fall in the next few years.

There are about 900 infant teachers in the district based at about 150 first and primary schools.

Ian Murch, of Bradford's NUT, said the extra 66 teachers would not make a huge impact.

"I am not criticising the money. It is in the right direction. But the real problem with oversized classes is an inadequate amount of funding."

The picture in neighbouring Leeds is entirely different from Bradford. There not one child will be in a large class; in Calderdale only 704 and in Kirklees the figure amounts to 951.

Nationwide only Lancashire and the Home Counties of Hertfordshire, Hampshire, Kent and Surrey will have more infant pupils in classes of over 30.

Addingham First School headteacher Jane Drake said she has some classes containing 39 pupils, although the use of an additional 'floating' teacher means that children are often taught in class sizes of around 20.

There are no classes of more than 30 at Crossley Hall First School, in Thornton Road, Bradford, said headteacher Michael Pioli.

Children need the lots of attention from their teacher in their first few years, he said, because of the amount of intensive work developing reading, writing and behavioural skills.

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