This was the headline of the Journal's top story yesterday as The National Association for Small Schools (NASS) publicly raised there concerns that despite a Government pledge in 1998 to reverse a trend which saw 450 lost in the preceding 15 years, between 100 and 300 schools could soon be shutting their doors.

The article goes on to mention campaigners opposing the proposed closure of small schools across Northumberland, South Tyneside and County Durham. Better still we were then the first school to be mentioned and quoted with Sean Hudson saying:

"We feel very much part of a wider closure programme because there are fewer and fewer small schools in urban communities compared to rural areas, where they see the benefits of small schools.

"Urban areas are losing out because when local authorities look at surplus places it is easy to target small schools where they know there are not going to be as many objections.

"Small schools which offer the opportunity of one-to-one teaching and the ability of pupils to socialise better with their peers are vitally important in areas like South Tyneside which have high levels of deprivation.

The Northern Echo article again sees our school mentioned before all others, but no quotes were included. The fact we are being contacted early on this topic and getting good exposure through it is confirmation that we have so far ran a high quality campaign, let's not let this momentum slip.