One in five of Clare’s primary schools have at least one ‘super sized’ class.
It follows primary teachers raising concerns with the Department of Education about oversized classrooms as children prepare to go back to school.
There are currently 110 primary schools throughout all of county Clare.
A Clare FM analysis into the Department of Education’s latest statistical bulletin shows 23 of these have at least one class with more than 30 students in it, which is deemed ‘super sized’.
Schools in the Ennis and Shannon areas have registered some class sizes with as many as 35 pupils in them.
Four classes in county Clare had 34 students in them in the last academic year, with seven having 33.
There are 28 further primary classrooms across the Banner which recorded between 30 and 32 students before the summer break.
One school in Ennis documented six separate classes with at least 30 pupils in them.
It comes as teachers union the INTO raises concern about the matter as students and teachers prepare to return to their desks, with its members suggesting pupils’ learning suffers in overcrowded classrooms.
The figures come despite Clare recording a 5 percent drop in the number of primary school pupils registered since 2017.
