Falling pupil numbers have put the future of some classes at a French school at risk, so parents have thought outside the box.
Fifteen sheep have been registered at a French primary school as part of a novel bid to save classes at risk of closure.
Jules-Ferry in Crets en Belledonne, a small town of less than 4,000 people at the foot of the Alps, had been told that it would have to scale back its lessons because of falling pupil numbers.
There are only 261 children at the school – but now they have been joined by more than a dozen sheep in a symbolic move to tackle what parents have described as a “miserable situation”.
The farm animals were provided by a local herder, Michel Girerd, who with the help of his dog escorted the new pupils along to the school to see them officially signed up with their birth certificates.
Among the names added to the register during a ceremony watched by parents, teachers and children were Baa-bete and Saute-Mouton.
Gaelle Laval, one of the parents behind the initiative, told Le Parisien newspaper: “National education is unfortunately only numbers. And so now, with this surge in numbers, we are good.”
