Civometry

Department for Education · Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes

Average secondary class size

2025/26 academic year Final

22.6pupils

Average secondary class size was 22.6 in 2025/26 academic year, up 0.4% (0.1) from 22.5 in 2024/25 academic year.

▲ 0.4% · +0.1 against 2024/25 academic year (previous period)

  1. Department for Education index
  2. 2025/26 academic year
  3. published 4 August 2026
  4. 019e7401-70d1-73ca-9855-bd7258e5a1ca
  5. row “Size of class=Total; Type of class=Secondary”
  6. column “Average class size”
  7. cell value 22.615110722218482

2025/26 academic year is the highest figure in the published series: 22.6. Rule: highest of the 11 periods published here (2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic year).

2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic year

Average secondary class size: 2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic yearConservativeConservativeConservativeConservativeConservativeLabourLabour010202016201820202022202420262015/16 academic year: 20.4 pupils · published 4 August 20262016/17 academic year: 20.8 pupils · published 4 August 20262017/18 academic year: 21.2 pupils · published 4 August 20262018/19 academic year: 21.7 pupils · published 4 August 20262019/20 academic year: 22 pupils · published 4 August 20262020/21 academic year: 22.3 pupils · published 4 August 20262021/22 academic year: 22.3 pupils · published 4 August 20262022/23 academic year: 22.4 pupils · published 4 August 20262023/24 academic year: 22.4 pupils · published 4 August 20262024/25 academic year: 22.5 pupils · published 4 August 20262025/26 academic year: 22.6 pupils · published 4 August 2026
Published valueProvisional or revisedLatestShaded bands: governments (see labels)Hover or use arrow keys to read a value

What this measures

The average number of pupils per class in state-funded secondary schools in England at the January census.

What this doesn’t measure

Sixth-form or vocational group sizes, which are counted differently.

Important caveat

Figures come from the January school census and cover state-funded schools in England unless the metric says otherwise. A pupil enrolled at more than one school in a year can be counted at each. Absence measures use possible sessions, so a school's timetable affects them; the persistent absence threshold was changed to 10% of sessions from 2015/16 and earlier years are on the old basis.

Revision history

No period of this series has been revised since it was first ingested here. Revisions are recorded automatically when a later release publishes a different figure for the same period.

Source

Publisher
Department for Education
Publication
Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes
Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026, published 4 August 2026
Source file
dfe_education.json
File SHA-256
301a1eda429205c90247cc4efad5564351b549d7772715a628d8459e360d8b47
Retrieved
3 September 2026
Sheet
class_size
Table
019e7401-70d1-73ca-9855-bd7258e5a1ca
Row
Size of class=Total; Type of class=Secondary
Column
Average class size
Cell value
22.615110722218482
Geography
E92000001
Unit
pupils
API
/api/metrics/class_size_secondary · /series · /vintages

Government periods

Change during each government, from the level inherited to the last complete period before it left office. Describes the period; does not attribute cause.

Labour 2024–22.42022/23 academic year22.62025/26 academic year↑ 1.1%
Conservative 2019–202421.72018/19 academic year22.42022/23 academic year↑ 3.2%
Conservative 2017–201920.42015/16 academic year21.72018/19 academic year↑ 6.4%

Full comparison with chart

Release
Explore Education Statistics: releases to August 2026 · publication page
Last updated
4 August 2026
Next release expected
Not yet announced (estimated from the usual cadence)