Pupils at primary schools in Brighton and Hove are taught in classes of up to 56 pupils per teacher.

Latest figures show youngsters in local authority schools across the city are taught in some of the largest class sizes in the country.

The council’s average for schools with one teacher per classroom ranks fourth nationally.

It is the highest ratio outside the London boroughs.

The figure of 27.9 is also above the national and regional average of 26.2 and 26.6 respectively.

But councillors have defended the statistics as misleading.

Councillor Vanessa Brown, cabinet member for children and young people, said: “We place an emphasis on high quality teaching. And at the same time we have a high number of expert staff who contribute to our classrooms that are not teachers, such as experienced classroom assistants.

“This way teachers spend their time applying their valuable skills to teaching children. Other staff help out with administrative duties while learning mentor and teaching assistants work with small groups and individuals.”

A council spokesman said: “This is a misrepresentation of incorrectly collected figures and the Departmentof Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) had confirmed as much to us.

The figure comes from a snapshot of a PE class where two classes were put together and looked after by one teacher together with teaching assistants.

This is not uncommon and the Government’s electronic data collection system is supposed to eliminate this from happening as it is a misrepresentation.”

A Government spokesman said teaching assistants were not included in the count for any of the boroughs.

The figures, from the DCSF, show a similar trend for pupils in secondary schools.

The city’s average of 21.7 students in classrooms with one teacher is above the national average of 20.6 and the regional figure of 20.8. But for those with more than one teacher per classroom the average for both tiers of education fall below the national average.

Both East and West Sussex, at 27.2 and 26.9 for primary and 21.6 and 21.3 for secondary schools with one teacher per classroom, were also above the national average.

A spokeswoman for East Sussex County Council said: “We do have a policy to keep class sizes down at both primary and secondary schools but we always recognise there is a variety of reasons why some schools may choose to have bigger classes than others.”

A spokesman for West Sussex County Council said: “We’re always trying to recruit more teachers and we have measures in place to continue this.”