TWO Caldicot schools are under threat of closure because of surplus places in a major shake-up of primary school education in south Monmouthshire.

Council chiefs are considering two options and under one of them West End Infants and Sandy Lane Infants in the town would close, with Welsh medium school Ysgol Y Ffin moving from Sudbrook to the Sandy Lane site.

This month, Monmouthshire county council's working group on the schools reorganisation is consulting staff, governors and parents at the two infants schools along with Durand, St Mary's and Green Lane schools which would also be affected by the shake-up.

There are 89 pupils in West End Infants with a surplus of 85 places, and 102 pupils at Sandy Lane Infants with a surplus of 72.

In all five schools there are currently 697 pupils with 257 surplus places. The news comes as a blow to parents and staff at the two schools which could close. In 2002, an initial working group said they should be saved and become proimaries, while Green Lane school should close, St Mary's Junior was to be given primary school status, with a new school built in Rogiet.

But after re-examining the decisions, the group came up with the present two options.

Yesterday, parents of children Sandy Lane School told the Argus they want it to remain open.

Dawn Phillips, 39, of Shirenewton has a five-year-old attending Sandy Lane and a seven and 10-year-old at St Mary's. She said: "Closing small school worries the parents because the children will lose their close ties with each other.

"It's horrendous that four-year-olds will have to attend larger schools. There could be problems with bullying."

Paula Harris, 35, of Tennyson Road, Caldicot, said her son Rhys, 6, would hate the idea of a closure.

"This school is perfect, children are happy, everyone knows each other," she said.

West End Infants head teacher Gary Keeblesaid: "The move is still in proposal stages. We will be disappointed if forced to close. We are realistic but we have the children's education at heart.

"If that's the decision they make I want to make sure the children still get the best education and try to be positive."

County Councillor, Peter Fox said West End and Sandy Lane schools were not viable.

He said: "We recognise that we have more surplus places in Caldicot and we need to remove West End and Sandy Lane from the equation with the suggestion that Sandy Lane could be used for the Welsh school."