THE headteacher of a doomed primary school has spoken of his devastation at its forthcoming closure.

Tony Kemp, headteacher at Rise Carr School, Darlington, for four years, said he was deeply disappointed.

The school's fate was sealed at a School Organisation Committee meeting last Friday, when members voted unanimously to close the school at the end of this academic year.

Mr Kemp said the school community was devastated.

"While the decision had not been made, there was always hope, but now there is nothing," he said.

"A lot of people already thought it was a foregone conclusion, but we kept hoping until last Friday.

"I had to tell the staff when I got back from the meeting, but I just could not bring myself to tell the children. Everyone is very, very sad."

Standards at the school had been improving, he said, and several schools were below Rise Carr in Sats results and in the value added school league tables.

"It is so very sad that our standards are so much better now than in the Ofsted report that was quoted, when we were in serious weaknesses," he said. "We have got ourselves out now, and the work we have done here has been of high quality. We have achieved so much here in recent years."

Until July, when pupils will leave school for the last time, he vowed that it would be business as usual.