AN online campaign to save the smallest primary school in Essex has already attracted nearly 200 supporters.

Essex County Council is consulting parents and others this week on proposals to close St Andrew’s School, Wormingford, which has only 13 pupils.

The school’s last Ofsted inspection rated it as “good” overall with aspects considered “outstanding”.

However, it costs Essex County Council more than twice as much to run per pupil than the average Essex primary school.

Parents and governors are considering launching a formal campaign to keep the school open, encouraged by the number of people who have now signed up to a group on the Facebook social networking website called Save St Andrew’s School, Wormingford.

School governor Mick Collins’s seven-year-old son, Fred, is a pupil and he had hoped daughter Elizabeth, two would go, too.

He said: “Other schools offer battery education – Wormingford offers a free range education.

“Rather than just being taught the three Rs, it gives the children the opportunity to explore.”

Mum Nicky Eliot, from Bures, said her seven-year-old daughter Megan would be devastated if the school had to shut. She said: “If it closed down and she had to move, she would be very upset.

“She keeps asking ‘does another school do this?’ or ‘does another school do that?’ Because it’s such a small school they all do everything together.”

Stephen Castle, councillor responsible for education, said the authority had to consider the educational and financial viability of the school.