Pupils at Summerhill school, where attending lessons is voluntary, have voted to increase their time in the classroom.

The Suffolk independent school is founded on progressive principles in which pupils make many decisions about the running of the school, including whether they should attend lessons.

As part of this "democratic" principle, a ballot has been held on the future shape of the school day, with pupils and staff voting for an extension of teaching hours.

As well as taught lessons between 9.30am and 1pm, the pupils have agreed to lessons from 4.30pm to 6.15pm.

Headteacher Zoe Readhead said that the pupils, aged from 5 to 18, had opted to spend more time in lessons taught by teachers rather than in individual study.

But despite the collective decision, individual pupils will still retain the right not to attend some or all lessons.

The school, founded in 1921 to pioneer liberal approaches to education, is still under threat of closure after a highly-critical report last summer by inspectors - which included a complaint against the school's policy of non-compulsory attendance.

The school has made changes in response to complaints made by inspectors - but the school is appealing against the attempt to make compulsory attendance a requirement, with a hearing scheduled for March.

Zoe Readhead says the principle of allowing pupils a free choice over attendance or non-attendance is central to the philosophy of the school.

Right to play

"If we say that children have a right to choose how they live when they're here, we can't then impose compulsion on going to lessons."

"Pupils who come to Summerhill may already have been traumatised by their experience of mainstream education.

"Because they've come from a regime in which they were forced to attend classes, when they're given a choice they might initially only go to a few or to none."

But in the long run, such freedom of expression, she says, "produces untraumatised, happy and confident pupils".

In terms of the numbers of pupils choosing not to attend lessons, Ms Readhead says the school does not keep figures. "It isn't an issue here."

Parents of pupils at Summerhill have vigorously defended the school's philosophy, saying that it is their right to pay for the type of education appropriate to their children.

"I am pleased with the education they are receiving. I believe that the inspection process is fundamentally flawed and the Ofsted report is similarly flawed," said parent David Ramm, when the critical inspection report was published.

Parents, who pay between £5,300 to £6,550 for boarding fees, say that they want the school's unorthodox approach to continue.

This includes the school's belief that children should be "completely free to play as much as they like. Creative and imaginative play is an essential part of childhood and development".

And that children should be "free from compulsory or imposed assessment, allowing them to develop their own goals and sense of achievement".

But the inspectors from the Office for Standards in Education say that such a liberal approach allows pupils "to mistake the pursuit of idleness for the exercise of personal liberty".