Villagers and governors have six weeks to thrash out the future of the district's smallest school which was spared the axe in the authority's education shake-up.

Oldfield First School, near Keighley, has just 35 pupils.

And Bradford Council, which is scrapping its three-tier system to introduce a two-tier alternative, has appointed a special link officer to work with the community, governors and teachers to help it make the transition to a primary.

A series of meetings - details of which have yet to be announced - are to be held with the aim of producing a plan to enable the school to accommodate pupils up to the age of 11. At present they go to middle school at the age of nine.

Headteacher Maggie Redpath said: "I have received a document from the LEA with two options and we have been appointed a link officer to work with.

"One of the options is to continue to take eight children a year and the other is to reduce it to five. But whichever decision we make, we will have to build a new classroom to accommodate the extra children who will stay on until they are 11."

A plan had already been drawn up for a new classroom and toilets but that might have to be adapted, she added.

Keighley MP Ann Cryer, whose lobbying of Education Minister Estelle Morris, helped save the school, said she was pleased progress was being made.

"I believe the present intake of eight should be maintained because it will make the school more viable," she said.

"I will continue to work with the headteacher and the school to make sure we get what is best for the children and the community."

Oldfield faced being closed as part of the shake up, but a campaign by staff, governors and the community persuaded the Government to instruct Bradford Council to look at ways of saving the school.

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