Norfolk County Council has said small schools can harm pupils' academic performance, but parents have said they value their family feel.

Gordon Boyd, the council's assistant director of children's services, wants schools to join together to form federations with about 200 pupils, and says some communities will lose a school site in the village in the process - something he admits 'pulls at everybody's heartstrings'.

He says that while many local people want their village school to remain open, this can be 'an attachment to mediocrity'.

Meanwhile, parents at The George VI Primary in Great Bircham have launched the SOS – Save Our School – campaign and one of them, Claire Wright, said: 'I've got four children, three have gone through there, they've all left Bircham School and gone into high sets, they've all done well.

'It's a little family really. We knew numbers have been dropping over the last four years but it all seems very hush-hush.'

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