Last year there was a major change at the private Waldorf elementary school my son attends. His second-grade class had only about 10 kids, and the third-grade class above him had a similarly small number. The teachers were concerned that so few kids in the class would hurt learning; in a tiny class, they felt, kids would have fewer opportunities to form friendships and fewer opportunities to learn from and teach each other. So the teachers consulted with the board, and they eventually decided to combine the two classes into a 15- to 20-student third/fourth-grade class. The change seems to have worked out well.
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