Campaigners fighting to save several county schools backed for closure by councillors today claimed their elected officials had let them down.

Shropshire councillors today agreed to close five primary schools.

Students at a secondary school near Oswestry have been banned from using mobile phones by the new acting head. Pupils at Rhyn Park School can still take their phones on to the premises.

Critics of plans to create an “all-through” school near Oswestry failed to turn up to an open evening put on by pupils at the village secondary school.

Pupils at St Martins’ Rhyn Park School, near Oswestry, are opening their classrooms up to protesters against plans to merge their secondary school with the village primary school.

A sledgehammer blow was today delivered to a number of schools across Shropshire after the latest proposals to overhaul the county’s education system were released.

Governors at two Shropshire schools being considered for merger plans under an education shake-up in the county have voted against becoming a combined body.