Super Size School Classes

7 February 2011, 12:24 | Updated: 22 February 2011, 10:20

A junior school is putting children in super-sized classes and is telling Heart it is helping their pupils.

Bure Valley School in Aylsham in Norfolk think they have some of the largest class sizes in the UK at the moment.

Headteacher John Starling has grouped all the year 3 pupils into one big class of 70, which is run by two teachers and three teaching assistants.

The year four class is made up of 60 pupils, with two teachers and two assistants.

He says the team-teaching approach is working and says he aims to extend it to other school years.

``We've monitored the children very carefully in core subjects,'' said Mr Starling. ``At the end of the first year we found they had made double the progress they had in the previous year.''

He said staff were able to work closely with individual groups of children within classes.

Ofsted inspectors rated the school ``good'' after an inspection in October. They said some aspects of the school's work were ``outstanding''.