Despite last-minute pleas from campaingers and local councillors, Suffolk County Council's cabinet agreed today that Clare Middle should be axed and Haverhill's Castle Manor and Samuel Ward Upper schools turned into high schools for 11-18-year-olds.

The changes are part of the county-wide restructuring from three-tier to two-tier education, which councillors believe will raise standards.

The expansion of Sudbury Upper School will now begin two years earlier than expected. It will take 11-year-olds from Glemsford, Cavendish and Hartest schools who previously would have gone to Clare Middle.

Campaigners from pressure group Clare and Local Area for Rural Education hoped to persuade county councillors to back plans to convert Clare school into a rural community college.

Their proposal was backed by local county councillors Richard Kemp and Jane Midwood and South Suffolk MP Tim Yeo.

Mr Kemp made a last-minute plea to today's cabinet meeting, saying: "Overwhelmingly the parents of my area schools, Glemsford and Hartest, were largely in favour of an extended Clare Middle School. They considered as parents that represented an option much more in tune with rural backgrounds of their children.

"This has been rejected on the grounds of cost and educational dis-benefit. I will not enter into the arguments of educational attainment and benefit as I think the main remedy for achievement is the happines and the environment those children are taught in."

For full story see this week's Free Press.