Parents, teachers and residents raised concerns over merging two schools in a 2.5m project.
Oxfordshire County Council plans to combine Wantage Infants and Juniors. The project, on the juniors' site in Newbury Street, would be funded by the sale of the Wantage Primary School site, in Garston Lane, which closed a year ago, and possibly the infant school land in Church Street.
Any money left will go towards providing nursery education at the town's Stockham School. The new 420-pupil school, which will include a nursery class, will open in September 2002. Children will be taught at the Garston Lane site while the new school is built. The plans were outlined at a public meeting attended by about 150 people.
Parents raised concerns about traffic and the effect moving to the Garston Lane site for 18 months and then to the new school would have on their children's education.
But schools officer David Mankelow argued the move was not as traumatic as moving schools, as it would only be a change of building.
He added that the merger will mean that children will not have the disruption of changing schools during key stages of the National Curriculum.
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