The academy class with 60 pupils ... and three teachers

Frank Green, headteacher of Leigh Technology Academy in Dartford, has introduced the 60-strong classes, led by teams of three teachers, because he believes they are key to improving pupils' behaviour and exam grades.

Leigh's new £36 million building, which the academy has just moved into, has been designed with 12 rooms large enough to take the classes, which are at least double the size of those in most secondary schools.

Pupils are supposed to fare better if taught in smaller groups, according to conventional thinking.

Private schools promote their smaller class sizes as a major selling point and in state primaries, three-, four- and five-year-olds must, by law, be taught in groups no larger than 30.

But Mr Green insisted there was "considerable research evidence" that children learn well - particularly in technology-related subjects - in groups of 55 or 60, supported by three teachers and sometimes one or more classroom assistants.

He said the system also had advantages for managing classroom behaviour, explaining: "With the best will in the world, not every teacher is a brilliant classroom disciplinarian. When you've got three adults in the classroom, it makes it more difficult to behave badly."

The large-class policy, which was introduced at Leigh for science three years ago, has now been expanded to cover English, maths, science and technology and is likely to extend to humanities and languages.

Mr Green said the system allowed for far greater flexibility.

In traditional ability sets, children are grouped for individual subjects and stay in those classes throughout a year.

Under Leigh's system, after an introduction to the day's topic for the whole class of 60, the pupils can be split into smaller groups according to their grasp of a particular topic. For example, children who grasped a Shakespeare play with relative ease could be in the top set for one session, but if they had difficulty with another topic on a different day, they could be placed in a group moving at a slower pace. Leigh is one of a handful of secondary schools pioneering super-classes, which Mr Green revealed have the support of parents and pupils. "Generally speaking, once they've got used to it, the students think it's great - they can move at their own pace and have access to different viewpoints," he said.

The National Union of Teachers said it was not opposed to "team-teaching", which had been successfully used for years in primary schools. However, union general secretary Steve Sinnott said: "Using the cover of team teaching to increase class sizes to unacceptable levels is something we would be very, very concerned about."