Education: Too small to live, too good to die: Village schools are sharing staff and even their headteachers in order to survive, says Wendy Berliner

Headteachers from small schools all over the country will meet in Coventry tomorrow at a time when there appears to have been an unexpected hiatus in the relentless closure of small schools.

Two years ago there were predictions that thousands of small, mostly rural, schools were facing extinction. Set against a national surplus of 1.5 million school places, they were considered too expensive to run and unlikely to have enough expert staff to teach the nine-subject national curriculum.

But the mass closures have not happened. Instead, small schools are being encouraged to work together or, far more radically, federate under one head, governing body and parent/teacher association.

The risk of pushing schools into applying for grant-maintained status and the delicate political balance on many county councils have persuaded many councils to leave small schools alone.

Only where big reorganisation schemes are under way - as in Surrey and Warwickshire - are local authorities considering large reductions in small-school numbers.

One school of thought argues that there is no need for councils to do anything, because the delegation of budgets to the smallest schools will leave the financially weakest unable to pay staff. A place in a primary school of fewer than 30 pupils can cost nearly four times the average.

As one county source put it: 'Most authorities are not bursting to tangle with the small-school problem. They are waiting for the engine of funding to manage it for them.'

Local authorities are more likely to suggest alternatives that ensure better use of scarce resources. One way is through the 'cluster group', where, in theory, neighbouring small schools co-operate in sharing specialist staff, for example. In practice, faced with a vacancy, a head will pick the best person for their own school, and only about one-third of clusters share specialists. In any event, David Keast of the Small Schools Network says there has been a reduction in the amount of financial support for clustering from local authorities.

Another alternative, federating schools under one head, scythes through village loyalties, and is resisted by those parents who want to keep their individual schools.

Small-school supporters are nervous of federation, too. Molly Stiles, co-ordinator of the National Association for the Support of Small Schools, says: 'The closure argument is already won. You can close any of the bits of a federated school without any reference to local people or the education secretary.'

'We have members who say that if a community wants to keep its school, whatever the size, it should keep it. I don't see why children in rural areas should be treated as if they can't have anything.'

The National Association of Head Teachers' Small Schools Conference, Allesley Hotel, Coventry, 4-5 March.

National Association for the Support of Small Schools' annual conference, Connaught Hall, London WC1, 19 March. Tel: Molly Stiles on 026 377 553.

Small Schools Network, Exeter University, Exeter EX1 2LU. Tel: David Keast on 0395 513401.

(Photograph omitted)