PARENTS are determined to keep fighting to save Northview School in Highworth.

The fate of the primary school is in jeopardy because of shrinking pupil numbers.

Swindon Council cabinet members will decide its future in two weeks’ time.

Mums and dads have left a petition in nearly every shop in Highworth to muster support for keeping the 115-pupil school open.

Along with other parents, mother Clair Power, 36, dropped off petitions yesterday.

She said: “We are really pleased with the amount of shops helping us display the petition, including the butcher, kebab shop, post office and florist.

“We are desperate to do as much as we can before the decision goes to cabinet.

“Northview was only built in 1983, things can easily be turned around again.”

Clair said parents were pulling their children out of the school in droves for fear of being unable to find them a place for them if the possible closure goes ahead next year. Clair said: “The numbers are dropping as parents are frightened.

“They have started to panic. The kids are picking up on the mood in the school and it is not good for morale.”

She is worried about moving her nine-year-old daughter Georgia.

“If the school closes, it is really going to affect Georgia. I don’t want her changing schools in the last year of her Sats,” she said.

“We feel we may be made to send our children to another school with bigger class sizes.”

Helen Lawrence, 43, said moving her son to Westrop Primary School would be inconvenient.

She said: “It is going to be awful if the school closes as we will have to travel to the other side of the town. We can walk to school now.”

Another mother, Claire Titcombe, 42, said: “It is taking choice away from parents, which is upsetting.

“The school was in special measures but has come through that.

“But now it is weak and vulnerable as numbers are low.

“Northview is a community asset. It is not just about our children, it is about future generations.”

Claire said her daughters Sophie, 11, and Lucy, eight, were being affected by the uncertainty.

“It is upsetting for them to see their friends leaving and being uncertain about what school they will be in,” she said.