THE amount of funding received by Torfaen schools from the Welsh Government to tackle increasing class sizes will be looked into by a council committee. The authority’s learning communities overview and scrutiny committee met on Wednesday, May 9 to look over a report into four primary schools – Garnteg, Greenmeadow, Henllys Church in Wales and Llantarnam Community. Based on recommendations by the schools standard monitoring sub-committee, members raised concern about the situation at Greenmeadow and Llantarnam – both in Cwmbran – regarding class size. Cllr Glyn Caron said that while the funding was welcome, it would not help some of the schools that require it urgently. “Some of our schools are already receiving the funding. Well that’s great, lovely but it doesn’t help Llantarnam at this moment in time,” he said. “I think we need urgently to look at that.” The Llanyrafon West ward member added he was concerned about the impact of large class sizes on Llantarnam’s forthcoming Estyn inspection. Cllr Colette Thomas said members would look into the level of funding borough schools had received from the Welsh Government. She added: “I think we need to look out which schools have had the extra funding as well and how they would compare with Greenmeadow and Llantarnam.” Earlier this year a £36million Wales-wide fund was annouced  by the Welsh Government to help schools reduce large infant class sizes. Local authorities can submit bids to either allocation – a £16million revenue element for teacher recruitment and £20million capital pot for building extra classrooms and learning space. A Welsh Government spokesman said: “The grant is flexible and local authorities have been asked to profile their proposed expenditure over the lifetime of the grant. “Funding of £556,002 is available to Torfaen over the four years of the grant. “The authority is awaiting confirmed pupil numbers so funding can be targeted where it is needed most based on the most up to date information. “We are expecting details of the five schools to be targeted. “Grant will be dependent on schools meeting the fundamental aim of the grant of reducing infant class sizes in schools that meet the target criteria.”