COMMUNITIES affected by a £300m shake-up of education yesterday learned where the axe is likely fall.

Initial plans have identified 23 schools which should be considered for closure and a further 94 which could be merged with others nearby.

Families and staff affected by the plans have reacted with disbelief and fury -- but vowed to do all they can to keep their classrooms open.

In Shildon, locals face losing their only secondary school and two comprehensives in north-west Durham are being lined up for mergers.

Communities such as Beamish, Wearhead and Cassop could be left without a school and parents would have to take their children to neighbouring villages.

Stunned parents at Eldon Lane Primary, near Bishop Auckland, were told of the school's possible fate as they waited to pick up their children yesterday afternoon.

One mother said: "This is a good school and our children are settled. They are not going to close us down. We will do whatever it takes.''

Headteacher Dorothy Hope said: "We will be putting the best case forward that we can so that this school can remain open.''

One mother in Shildon said: "We should get together and fight this. Where on earth are they expecting us to send all these children?''

The town's Sunnydale Comprehensive School is on the list, 25 years after it survived an earlier closure threat.

One local said: "I can remember all the save our school banners from last time and the support we got. We've beat them once, we will do it again.''

County Councillor Bill Blenkinsopp, vice-chairman of governors at Aycliffe Village Primary School, said: "They're trying to create beacon schools which will be second to none, but they're getting rid of tiny schools."

Kathleen Linsley, headteacher at St Oswald's C of E Infant School, in Durham, which is also facing closure, said: "We are very concerned.

"This is a very good little school and parents and governors will work together to prevent the closure."

Carole Carlon, whose seven-year-old daughter, Stephanie, attends Newton Hall Infant School, in Durham, said: "There's a good teacher-parent relationship. I can't understand why this school would be nominated."

Norman Raine, whose seven-year-old grandson, Joshua, is a pupil there, said: "Someone has got to put a stop to it."

At Sherburn Hill, near Durham, another school listed for potential closure, headteacher David Thurlwell said: "We have worked so hard to improve this school, and that's been our agenda. We have clean classrooms, with modern equipment. It's just so demoralising."

The school, with capacity for 120 pupils, has 37 surplus places. If it closes, the 83 pupils are likely to be transferred to nearby Sherburn Village Primary School, which has exactly 83 spare places.

At the gates of Witton Gilbert Primary School, between Durham and Lanchester, one mother said: "It's a very old school and very well run. It's just going to be devastating for the village."