State school teachers concerned about bigger class sizes as school year begins THE BAD OLD DAYS: Back in 1976, Brighton State School had plenty of pupils in its Year 5. Picture: Robert Barnes Source: The Courier-Mail TEACHERS say class sizes are shaping as a big concern as the majority of Queensland students start back at school this week. Changes made to the way teachers are allocated in state schools will mean fewer teachers per student this year. The Queensland Teachers' Union says indications of more enrolments than expected could put more pressure on schools and lead to bigger classes or cuts to resources. The QTU and principal associations have already warned of the potential for larger classes and loss of student programs after secondary resource teacher positions were cut and an allocation model for primary teachers was changed. As a result, every state primary school with more than 175 students will have half a classroom teacher less this year based on the same enrolments last year, the Department of Education, Training and Employment has said. Principals say when you count in music, art and HPE teachers, it is about one teacher per affected school. There are also fewer teachers per student in state high schools after resource teachers, who were used to help maintain some smaller class sizes for specialist subjects, were taken out of the staffing model. QTU president Kevin Bates said DETE made the changes to plug a budget shortfall of 569 teachers needed to meet enrolment growth. He said enrolment growth at first glance appeared to be more than anticipated, but exact class size numbers couldn't be known until day eight - the day used to allocate teachers based on enrolments - and perhaps afterwards because of rain. "Early indications are that the cause for concern is in fact greater than what we originally expected," he said. This has a capacity as an issue to impact on tens of thousands of teachers and hundreds of thousands of Queensland students so this is not a minor issue or something that will simply go away, this is something that will have the potential to have a lifelong impact on students. Queensland Association of State School Principals president Hilary Backus said classes may need to be bigger due to the new staffing model, depending on whether schools could form composite classes. But she said it would be hard to tell until day eight or longer because of the floods. DETE assistant director-general Craig Allen said it was "premature to discuss teacher numbers" given schools hadn't reached day eight yet. "Where there is the possibility of a class size in excess of the agreed target, the class arrangements shall be the subject of a timely consultative process," he said. Education Minister John-Paul Langbroek said DETE was prepared for enrolment growth. "As student numbers increase so will staff allocations," he said.