TODAY is D-DAY for many of Southampton's secondary schools.

A crunch meeting is being held to decide their fate, the culmination of nearly two years of speculation, consultation and recommendations that has left many school facing an uncertain future.

Today Southampton City Council's nine member cabinet will decide whether to close Millbrook Community School, Oaklands Community School, Grove Park Business and Entreprise College and Woolston School Language College.

In their place it is proposed to create two replacement 900-pupil schools on the Oaklands and Grove Park sites.

The Cabinet will also decide which organisation should be involved in the creation and running of the two schools.

Other decisions to be taken today will be whether to increase Redbridge Community School's capacity from 900 to 1,050 and whether to admit boys and girls to year seven at Sholing Technology College from September next year.

Today's meeting comes after education bosses agreed earlier this year to turn both Bellemoor and Regents Park Schools from single sex schools to mixed 750-pupil secondaries.

It has also already been agreed that Bitterne Park should be able to increase its capacity to cope with the demand for places in its locality.

The review into secondary school places, called Learning Futures, was launched last year in a bid to remove surplus places, reduce the number of single sex schools and raise educational standards. If all the proposals are agreed, it will cost the council £5.5m to implement the necessary changes in the first instance. Later the council will bid for up to an estimated £50m of government money.

Click HERE for the full report...