Oldfield parents have stepped up their campaign to keep their children's village school open.

Every Friday parents come into Oldfield First School for a few hours to help out with the campaign. To them, Friday is 'campaign day'.

The huge drive comes in response to Bradford council's schools review proposals in which all of Keighley's nine middle schools are to close in favour of a two-tier system of primary and upper schools. As part of the changes involved in forming the new structure, Oldfield has been earmarked for closure. Other first schools, apart from utley, are to become primary schools.

Numerous posters have been stuck on lamp-posts between the tiny 36-pupil rural school and Keighley, primarily along the main Haworth and Oakworth roads. The posters simply read 'Save Oldfield School'.

In addition to producing masses of posters, parents have met councillors in an attempt to reverse the proposals put forward by Bradford council.

Susan Bishop, a former pupil of Oldfield, says: "If the school was to close, I do not know what kind of village Oldfield would be. It would just be a drive-through. The school gives us a chance to get to know and meet other people in the village.

"The government keeps saying it's going to support rural schools and that's surely what Oldfield is - a rural school. I don't think we are any different to Stanbury (which will become a primary school) and we are not beyond change.

"We can take this school into the new millennium and we will."

Pupil Thomas Birdsall, six, told us: "I want Oldfield to stay open because it has nice teachers and all my friends are here. I'll be very sad if it closes.'

Kath Clegg, whose sons Charles, nine, and Michael, six, both attend the school, says: "We need the school not only for the high standard of education it provides but also for the community as a whole. Those parents who live as far away as Scar Top will have even further to travel if Oldfield closes.'

Michael says: "This is a really nice school and I live in Oldfield, so I don't want to go anywhere else."

Charles adds: "If this school closes, there will be nothing left here. It must stay open."

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