EDUCATION chiefs say they will try to re-employ all teachers at doomed Handley Hill, and relocate all pupils to other Winsford schools.

A Government Ombudsman last week discontinued the campaigners’ case to keep the under-capacity primary school open, and it is now due to close in summer 2009.

A county council spokesman says the process for relocating children and staff are already under way, and vowed every effort would be made to ease the transition.

Parents of pupils at the school will be asked for their top three choices of alternative schools.

“We’ll do our utmost to facilitate their preferences,” said the spokesman. “We’ll also look to support the staff by doing our best to secure them alternative jobs in Cheshire schools.”

Winsford Education Partnership chairman Tony Hooton said: “There are other good schools and parents should go and look at them with an open mind, and not make their decision on what they have heard from people who want to run down some of the schools.”

The school is also home to a memorial garden for four young brothers killed by their dad at a North Wales beauty spot in 2003. The council is in talks with the family over what to do with it.