A farmer has enrolled 15 sheep at a French primary school to boost pupil numbers after authorities announced plans to close a class.
Jules Ferry school, in the small town of Crêts en Belledonne, near the French Alps, was told one of its 11 classes would stop running after the number of pupils enrolled dropped from 266 to 261.
In an act of defiance, local farmer Michel Girerd went to the school with around 50 sheep and symbolically registered 15 of them including Baa-bete, Dolly and Shaun.
Mayor Jean-Louis Maret was presented with their birth certificates, and officially recognised the new admissions to the school during a special registration event attended by 200 staff, students and officials, reported the Farming UK.
Gaelle Laval, a parent of a child at the school, said: “National education is unfortunately only numbers. And so now, with this surge in numbers, we are good.
“We can go see the director of academy to assert our rights and save our class.”
