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

Average primary class size

2025/26 academic year Final

26.1pupils

Average primary class size was 26.1 in 2025/26 academic year, down 1.2% (0.3) from 26.4 in 2024/25 academic year.

▼ 1.2% · −0.3 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=Primary”
  6. column “Average class size”
  7. cell value 26.110905244346329

2025/26 academic year is the lowest figure in the published series: 26.1. Rule: lowest 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 primary class size: 2015/16 academic year to 2025/26 academic yearConservativeConservativeConservativeConservativeConservativeLabourLabour010202016201820202022202420262015/16 academic year: 27.1 pupils · published 4 August 20262016/17 academic year: 27.1 pupils · published 4 August 20262017/18 academic year: 27.1 pupils · published 4 August 20262018/19 academic year: 27.1 pupils · published 4 August 20262019/20 academic year: 27 pupils · published 4 August 20262020/21 academic year: 26.6 pupils · published 4 August 20262021/22 academic year: 26.6 pupils · published 4 August 20262022/23 academic year: 26.7 pupils · published 4 August 20262023/24 academic year: 26.6 pupils · published 4 August 20262024/25 academic year: 26.4 pupils · published 4 August 20262025/26 academic year: 26.1 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 primary schools in England at the January census.

What this doesn’t measure

Teaching assistants, or how much attention any pupil receives.

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=Primary
Column
Average class size
Cell value
26.110905244346329
Geography
E92000001
Unit
pupils
API
/api/metrics/class_size_primary · /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 2024–26.72022/23 academic year26.12025/26 academic year↓ 2.1%
Conservative 2019–202427.12018/19 academic year26.72022/23 academic year↓ 1.5%
Conservative 2017–201927.12015/16 academic year27.12018/19 academic year↓ 0.0%

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)