The main story of the paper was our fight to 'SAVE OUR SCHOOL' and the front page featured a picture of school governers Debbie Ainscow and Sheila Witte with a group of Parents and Grandparents standing behind, all holding a copy of the petition. A brief overview then directed readers to page 5 where we had another page mostly to ourselves.

On page 5 there was a more detailed article describing how the parents have been "drawing up battle plans" since the announcment of the TOPS prposals to slash surplus places across the borough, with our school being offered up for closure 2 years before any other.

Mrs Swales, Headteacher, commented "I'm very proud of the way our parents have organised them campaign and the support they've given the school" before it was the parent's turn to voice their opinons with Sheila Witte saying "TOPS was supposed to be for transforming our primary schools. But it can leave us alone as it's trashing our school."

Debbie Ainscow demonstrated the choice people have made to send their pupils to this school by stating "I now travel in from Hebburn every day because I want to continue his (her son Adam) education in a church-led school, despite us moving away from West Boldon."

The main article ended by publicising the all-important meeting on October 29th at the school, which we hope is going to be packed out with parents, grandparents, residents and local business people.

Aswell as the main article, we also had two small columns on page 5 commenting on the great support we are receiving from local businesses and the creation of this website respectively.

Rachael Greenlay has been inspirational in canvassing for support on North Rd and is quoted as saying "It's fantastic, every shop in North Road has a poster in the window. I've been allowed to make a giant one to put in the front of Leo's Wines."

Post office shop worker Michelle Gibson said, "It's a local school so we had to show our support, many of the children call in here on their way home. Everyone that has been coming in to buy something has been signing it, already we have three A4 sheets full of signatures, they've only been here since Friday."

I will resist the urge to talk about myself here, but the 2nd column gave a few quotes of my own and advertised the fact that the website has an online petition for people to sign, which had 23s signature at the time.

Over on page 6 there was a small piece in the 'Voice of South Tyneside' column ending with the following comment "With so much emotion surrounding something as important as children's education, this is one decision which our town hall chiefs simply must get right".

All in all a great start to making sure our voices are heard I think. Let's continue to let those who are making this decision know that the worth of Boldon C of E Primary cannot be solely measured by it's number of surplus places ... ultimately it is measured by the way in which it provides educational and social development to our children.