The sixth forms at Sir William Romney's School in Tetbury, Kingsmead School in Cheltenham and the Vale of Berkeley College are under threat.

Gloucestershire council officials have recommended all three be closed.

Parents, teachers and staff are expected to plead for them to be saved at a final council meeting.

Thirteen secondary schools in Gloucester, and all the county's sixth forms, are affected by what is being billed as the biggest shake-up in education since comprehensives were introduced.

In 2002, Ofsted said the provision of sixth form education in the county was "unplanned, uneconomic and ill-fitted to the needs of many students in smaller schools".