teaching and individual support for reading, and understanding of the contribution of
Teaching Assistants, through the use of methods that captured practitioners’
experiences, and through detailed case studies. We therefore deliberately sought to
combine different methods of data collection. This was a third main feature of the
study.

To date, publications from the study have been on relationships between class size
and attainment over the reception year (Blatchford, Goldstein, Martin and Browne,
2002); class size and within class groupings (Blatchford, Baines, Kutnick and Martin,
2001); class size and teaching (Blatchford, Moriarty, Edmonds and Martin, 2002);
class size and teacher’s and pupils’ behaviour (Blatchford, in press, b); class size and
pupil attentiveness and peer relations (Blatchford, Edmonds and Martin, in press); as
well as a book length treatment of the whole reception and KS1 study (Blatchford, in
press, a). Our purpose in this paper is to integrate the main findings and highlight our
main conclusions. We also take the opportunity to reflect on lessons we have learned
from the research.

Method

Sample: Schools, classes and children

The Class Size Study followed for three years a large cohort of pupils who entered
reception classes (4-5 years) in English schools during 1996/7, and a second separate
cohort of pupils who entered reception classes one year later during 1997/8. The
children were followed for the first three years of school, that is, through reception (4-
5 years), Year 1 (5-6 years) and Year 2 (6-7 years).

Numbers of LEAs, schools, classes and pupils in each cohort at the start of the study are
shown in Table 1.

Table 1: Numbers of LEAs, schools, classes and pupils in each cohort at the start of the
study

The research design involved random selection of schools within the participating
LEAs. All children entering reception classes in a selected school during the year
were included in the study. The schools in the study drew from a wide range of social
backgrounds, and were situated in urban, suburban and rural areas. Further details on
sample schools and children are in Blatchford (in press, a).

Data collection

Information on children, classes and teachers

Information was collected for each child on: term of entry, free school meal
eligibility, age, ethnic background, pre-school attendance, English as an additional

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