The merger of Chatham South School and Medway Community College to form a new academy will sound familiar to parents in Strood.

They were the first target of a Medway Council schools review - and they didn’t like it. An unpopular, albeit vastly improved, Temple School for Boys would be merged with the successful Chapter School for Girls.

Ten weeks of consultation began in October. Temple staff, parents and pupils were resigned to closure, won over by arguments of a new school and all the benefits that would bring.

Parents and staff at Chapter, however. feared the worst, saying the academy plan would destroy the ethos of a school considered one of the best in the Medway Towns.

That view was backed by pupils who launched a campaign group - Support Our Chapter Kids (SOCK) with a march to the former Civic Centre in Strood, led by a student riding her horse.

By the New Year SOCK campaigners changed their stance from outright opposition to acceptance with a proviso that the two schools should be merged gradually to minimise disruption to pupils. They also urged education chiefs to give Sue Dore, the head of Chapter School, the job of leading the new academy.

Campaigners initially opposed the proposal to close Chapter and Temple to form an academy but then changed their stance to merging the two schools gradually. The group also started a campaign to try and keep Sue Dore, the head of Chapter School, when the new academy opens.

On February 22 Medway Council’s cabinet voted in favour of the closure of Chapter and Temple schools. They set in motion a process that will lead to the opening of the Towns’ first academy in September 2009 on the existing Chapter site, initially admitting just girls and boys for Year 7.

This compromise means boys who were due to start their secondary school at Temple in 2009 will receive their education at Chapter. Meanwhile, boys in Years 8 to 11 will continue with their education at Temple school.

Construction of the new school should be completed by the summer of 2012 with The University College for the Creative Arts (UCCA) revealed as the lead sponsor.