Village primary schools should consider teaching pupils by video link and allowing buildings to be used as post offices or community centres to stave off closure, according to the Church of England. Radical action is needed to prevent many of the 2,222 small Anglican schools – teaching almost 230,000 pupils – from being shut, it is claimed. In a major report, the CofE said rural primaries remained one of the state’s last points of contact with the countryside following a ‘steady decline’ in the number of shops, libraries, pubs and police and fire stations in recent years. But it said the days of fully autonomous primary schools – some teaching as few as 20 pupils – were ‘numbered’ because of a ‘constant salami slicing of budgets’ combined with teacher recruitment problems. The report called on the governors of all Anglican primaries in rural areas to carry out an internal review into their long-term viability, saying ‘doing nothing is not an option’.