SCHOOL class sizes in England have soared by 20 per cent since the Tories took power in 2010 — and children from the poorest backgrounds have been hit hardest according to a new Labour Party analysis.

Almost one million children are now educated in over-crowded “super-sized” classrooms thanks to Tory cuts, Labour said today.

The largest increase has been in Barnsley in South Yorkshire, Swindon in Wiltshire as well as in Hampshire and Nottinghamshire. Schools in wealthier areas of London have smaller class sizes on average. 

The analysis shows that 900,672 pupils are in overcrowded classrooms, an increase of 153,141 — 20.5 per cent — since 2010 when the Tories were voted in thanks to the support of their Liberal Democrat collaborators.

Since then the government has ignored the recommendations of its own education adviser Sir Kevan Collins, who resigned in protest again the Tories’ “half-hearted approach” to schools overcrowding that he warned “risks failing hundreds of thousands of pupils.”

Classrooms are deemed overcrowded if they have classes of more than 30 pupils.

Labour shadow child poverty secretary Wes Streeting said: “Super-sized school classes show that Boris Johnson continues with the Conservative tradition of pulling up the ladder.

“Parents do not want to see their children crammed into super-sized classes and the evidence shows that kids from the poorest backgrounds are hit hardest.” 

Labour’s shadow schools minister Peter Kyle MP said: “Boris Johnson promised that education would be a priority on his watch. Instead, his government has continued with the Tory trend of rising class sizes and lowering social mobility. This was a major problem before the pandemic, this is now a major crisis.” 

Labour has launched a Children’s Recovery Plan which it says the government should adopt to tackle overcrowding.

This includes small group tutoring for all who need it, breakfast clubs and activities for every child, quality mental health support for children in every school and professional development for teachers to support pupils to catch up on lost learning.

A Department for Education spokesperson said that primary class sizes have decreased this year while the number of pupils in secondary school classes has remained stable. 

“We have also created an additional one million school places between May 2010 and May 2019, the largest increase in school capacity for at least two generations,” they added.