Powys Council is aiming to have 150 pupils per primary school, the county's education chief has said.

At a meeting of Powys County Council’s cabinet on Tuesday, November 9, the councillor driving the school closure programme forward, Cllr Phyl Davies told councillors how many pupils he believes are needed per school.

It came during a discussion on the future of Llanbedr Church in Wales primary school near Crickhowell, which saw cabinet vote to proceed with the closure plans.

At last week’s learning and skills committee members looked at the proposal for Llanbedr and  were not convinced that the argument in favour of closing the school had been made, with Cllr Jake Berriman suggesting that small rural schools were being targeted for closure for purely “cost” reasons.

He asked at what point would “this conveyor belt of school closures” stop and at what point the council has made “acceptable savings”.

The cost per pupil at Llanbedr is currently £6,010.

If five more children came to the school after Christmas, which is expected, the roll would go up to 54, and the cost would drop to around £4,300.

This would take it from the ninth most expensive school in the county to around 48/49 out of 78 primary schools.

Education officers had also pointed out that the Llanbedr headteacher, had extensive teaching commitments as well as leading the school.

Cllr Davies believed that designing the new curriculum for small schools would see an “incredibly high workload” put on two or three teachers, especially when a headteacher is in front of class.

Cllr Davies said: “When reference has been made of what size a school should be, it would be in a position where a teacher that could be in charge or lead an area of learning experience.

“If you look at class sizes this gives you a figure of the middle hundreds as an ideal a point to get to.

“I’m saying this as a personal opinion not a professional one, I’m not an educationalist, but common sense does come into some of this and it’s important to relate to that.”

The list of 78 primary schools shows that there are 27 with rolls of 130 pupils or more and 18 of 150 or over.

The Welsh Government defines a small school as one of 91 pupils or under.

Of the list of 78 Powys primary schools, there are 38 with rolls of 91 pupils or under.

Cabinet voted unanimously to continue the closure process at Llanbedr.

The next steps will see a legal notice published soon which starts a 28-day period for people to object to the decision.

A report on the objections will then come before the cabinet for a further decision.

It’s expected the school will close by August 31, 2022, with pupils to attend their nearest alternative schools.