Governors who fear for their school's future after it was announced that the number of new pupils will be cut by half are considering taking their protest to Education Secretary David Blunkett.

Wycliffe CE Middle is to be converted to a primary school under the final details of the schools shake-up announced last week to create a two-tier system.

But with no nursery planned and an intake cut from 60 to 30, pupil numbers will eventually diminish from the current roll-call of 400 to around 210, said a spokesman for the board of governors.

"We are concerned about the future of the school and its viability," said the spokesman. "We deeply regret that the authority has seen fit to propose a one form entry only on the Wycliffe site."

The governors will meet later this month, but the spokesman said their only recourse may be to take their appeal direct to Mr Blunkett.

The first round of the school shake-up produced plans to change the character of the school into a voluntarily controlled CE primary.

However, the re-think a few months later proposed closing it and Shipley First and establishing a new primary school on the large Wycliffe site - a former secondary school.

Now the third proposal will mean preserving Shipley First as a primary, a decision welcomed by the Wycliffe board, but will mean its own intake is halved.

"Wycliffe's excellence is nationally acknowledged," said the spokesman.

"We are therefore saddened that successive proposals from the authority have reduced in half the school's proposed contribution to the raising of educational standards in Bradford."

The chairman of Bradford City Council's Education Committee, Coun Jim Flood, denied the proposals would threaten the school's future.

"It is too gloomy to say a one form entry school is not viable. There will be many in the new scheme, Shipley CE being one."

He added that members had taken on board what communities had said about their schools and had tried to reach the best solution bearing in mind cost effectiveness and population density. Nursery provision was under scrutiny from an early years review and any of the new primary schools could be earmarked for provision in the future.

Bradford Council is set to agree the proposals tomorrow.

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