Parent power could be the key to safeguarding Colchester schools against any plans to merge them.

Essex County Council is reviewing the provision of infant and junior schools and one of the options being looked at is combining infants and juniors into single primary schools.

The authority says there is an imbalance in Colchester. Places with most potential pupils lack sufficient school places.

It also says merging would help improve standards, save money on refurbishment and lead to a better targeting of resources.

But parents at Hazelmere School, currently split into two sites, believe a merger would be to the detriment of their children.

And they have banded together to collect signatures for a petition urging the council to scrap the proposals.

Mother-of-three Jenny Hart, who is leading the fight, has already collected nearly 100 signatures.

Two of her children are already at the school in Hawthorn Avenue, Greenstead, but she has a one-year-old who will join in three years.

She said: "It is the uncertainty. A lot of us have young children who will be following their brothers and sisters into the school and yet we don't know whether it will be an infants or a primary school."

The parents are concerned their children will be joining a combined "super school, with a large age range of pupils and only one head in charge of many more pupils than previously.

Mrs Hart, of Veronica Walk, is hoping that when she presents the petition to education chiefs at County Hall in Chelmsford they will agree to come and talk to the parents in detail about the plan.

She is still collecting signatures and said anyone wanting to add their name can catch her outside the school at the end of each weekday.

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