OMG!!! I can't believe the size of some of your classes!!!
We were the first year group to take up this course EVER in our school! There are about 60 people in year 12 this year that do one form of history (modern or ancient) and only four, including myself, took up the offer to do extension history. Our teachers were just happy that people from our school wanted to do it, even if it was a small number of us.
Anyway, I think smaller classes are great. You can put in a greater input into the class, learn better with less distractions (even if people only distract you inadvertently at times), and the teacher can pay more attention to you and help you more.
Anyways, we have kept all four of us that started the course. Being the first to ever do it at our school we kind of felt committed and determined to do our work and projects properly. The teacher is more than impressed with all of our efforts.