Department for Education · Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes · 3 values
Pupils in primary school classes by size of class
The number of pupils in state-funded primary school classes in England, split by the size of the class they were taught in — up to 30 pupils, 31 to 35, or 36 and more.
latest 12 months to 2025/26 academic year; 1 periods summed · total 3,974,132 pupils · published 4 August 2026
1 to 30 is the largest size of class at 87% of the total.
| Size of class | Latest 12 months | Share | Previous 12 months | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 to 30 | 3,471,538 | 87.4% | 3,540,399 | ▼ 1.9% |
| 31 to 35 | 470,774 | 11.8% | 510,316 | ▼ 7.7% |
| 36 plus | 31,820 | 0.8% | 33,490 | ▼ 5% |
Source
- Dataset
- Explore Education Statistics: absence, SEN, attainment, apprenticeships, NEET, class sizes · sheet class_size
- Rows
- Type of class=Primary; Size of class=Total; values are the sum of the published rows for each size of class and period.
- Caveat
- Whether a class over 30 is lawful: the infant class size limit of 30 applies only to reception and key stage 1 and has exceptions; nor pupils in independent schools.
- Parent metric
- Pupils in primary school classes
- API
- /api/metrics/primary_class_pupils_by_size/vintages