PARENTS, furious over the proposed closure of their children’s school, seized control of a formal consultation evening and demanded answers from council members.

Emotions were running high at the first consultation evening looking at plans to shut Vale of Berkeley College last week.

Parents who were desperate to get answers from members of Gloucestershire County Council took charge of the pre-organised event demanding that the council representatives stand up and give them answers in a Question Time-style set-up.

The consultation is in response to proposals made by Government education expert Graham Badman, who recently published a report for the National Challenge programme recommending that the school in Wanswell close as soon as possible.

It was later revealed that the county council had been looking at the option of closing the secondary school since it was put into the National Challenge last year, a scheme set up by central Government aimed at getting all schools to reach their GCSE targets by 2010.

Jo Grills, Gloucestershire's director of education, made a presentation to the parents at the meeting last Wednesday in which she said the school was costly to run and not all pupils were achieving their potential. "Doing nothing is not an option," she said.

Cllr Jackie Hall, cabinet member for education, who will be making the decision on whether to close the school, said for her closure was "the last option".

"If I can find a solution to keep the school open, by God I will," she said.

Parents grilled the council members on what provisions would be made for children with Special Educational Needs (SEN).

A parent of a child with Asperger syndrome said their son had made incredible progress at the school and that a stressful move would set him back months in this education.

Another parent of a child with SEN told the meeting it would be "catastrophic" for their child to be moved to another mainstream school.

The panel was also quizzed on teacher redundancies, federations and the speed of closure and how it would be managed.

Alex Greenway, a parent governor and leader of the Save our School action group, said: "I think the meeting went well, we played a high risk strategy, but it worked. We managed to get some answers from the council but still many remain unanswered."

Parents, teachers and governors have been told that if they can come up with a better recommendation than either closure or a "hard federation’ with a nearby school it will be considered.

"We now accept that we can’t just stay as we are, so we need to focus on finding a better solution than they are offering us," added Mr Greenway.

A second consultation meeting will be held at the school on Thursday from 6.30pm-8.30pm. The council has agreed to hand over the running of the meeting to the school and they will discuss other options for the Vale of Berkeley College.

* Keep signing and sending the Gazette Save our School campaign coupons. They will be presented to the council in the New Year ahead of its meeting to decide the school’s fate in February. Over 1,200 have so far been collected. The coupon will appear again in this week's Gazette.