A MUMS' army is preparing to take on council education chiefs in a bid to save a popular secondary school from closure.

The women have started petitions to save Grove Park Business and Enterprise College in Weston, Southampton, which is due to shut in 2010 as part of a major overhaul of secondary education in the city.

Their children attend Heathfield and St Monica junior schools in Sholing, which are feeder schools to Grove Park.

Mums at St Monica Junior School described the "bombshell" when they heard that Grove Park was due to close in four years' time.

Paula Taylor, 38, who is spearheading the campaign at St Monica's, said: "It has been a real shock. Everybody thought Woolston was going to close and not Grove Park.

"It will be terrible for our boys who are going up to the school this year because they are being told that in Years 10 and 11 they will have to change schools.

"It is the most important year in their school lives and they will be faced with having to go to another school."

FOR THE FULL STORY, INCLUDING REACTION FROM OTHER SCHOOLS IN THE CITY, READ TODAY'S DAILY ECHO