AN ELEVENTH-hour attempt to halt one of Oxford's largest secondary schools becoming an academy failed today.

Opponents of plans to close Oxford School, in Glanville Road, and reopen it in January as an academy called for the move to be put on hold until Government funding was clear.

They also challenged the timing of the closure notice, to be issued on Monday, warning this had not given time for schools in the area to discuss collaborating as an alternative.

But Oxfordshire County Council's children's services scrutiny committee said the decision did not need to be re-examined.

Academy status would free the school’s finances and curriculum from local authority control.

Councillors calling for a delay said academy plans would leave the school isolated.

Councillor Jean Fooks said: "The more we can do to get schools to support each other the better."

And they said funding would not be clear until after the Government's autumn spending review.

Fazal Hussain, chairman of the Central Oxford Mosque Society, said the three mosques within the school’s catchment should have been formally consulted before the decision.

The council's cabinet member for school's improvement Michael Waine said the academy bid was not driven by the possibility of more money and the status was not a bar to collaborating with other city schools.

The proposed academy is being sponsored by the CfBT Education Trust in partnership with Oxford and Cherwell Valley College and the county council.

It would take up to 1,050 children aged from 11 to 19, with a 250-place sixth form, and would specialise in English, and business and enterprise.

A petition against the plan containing 599 signatures was presented to the county council earlier this year.

A statutory six-week consultation period will start when the closure notice is issue.