A TROUBLED Hampshire special school may not be able to stay open unless more parents sign up their children for classes in September.

Stanbridge Earls School, which is at the centre of sex abuse claims, says that it has been advised it cannot re-open next term without sufficient numbers of pupils.

In a letter to parents seen by the Daily Echo, the board of trustees also warned that if the school, near Romsey, is unable to secure a suitable partner or income stream during that time, children would face being moved to other schools.

Negotiations for a takeover of the site by More House School, in Frensham, Surrey to run it as a sister facility collapsed last week, as reported by the Daily Echo.

Jenny Ringo, acting chairman of governors, on behalf of Stanbridge Earls board of trustees, stated that the school had been looking at other options during the negotiations with More House and was in discussions with “suitable organisations”.

Trustees have also been speaking to the Phoenix Group - a group of parents proposing to takeover and run the school themselves.

She said, by opening in September, the school would have the opportunity to finalise current discussions and “continue to pursue the other options”.

However, she said that it could only be done with sufficient pupils signed up so the school needed to know how many parents would do so.

The £39,000-a-year school is asking for parents' decisions by Friday and to pay fees for the term by August 15 into a ring-fenced trust account.

If the school was unable to open in September, parents would be refunded.

Ms Ringo said: “If there is insufficient support then our advisors have informed us that we will not be able to re-open in September.

“I hope you will feel that you can support the school for another term - so that we can still secure a positive outcome for Stanbridge and most importantly for all of our children.”

Ms Ringo added: “However if we do not secure a suitable partner or income stream, then the focus of the term will, I'm sad to say, switch to finding places for the children at other schools which can best accommodate their needs.

“We know how difficult a change of school is, especially for many of our children for whom change is hard.

“I am desperately sad that Stanbridge finds itself in this situation.”

It follows a Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal earlier this year, which found that Stanbridge Earls had discriminated against a girl and that staff members failed to tell the youngster's parents that she had complained of pain in an intimate part of her body.

As reported by the Daily Echo, the tribunal found that a vulnerable youngster had suffered “appalling abuse” at the hands of another student, while the school was slammed by panel members for being “unsystematic, unprofessional, ad hoc and completely inadequate” when it came to protecting the youngster, who cannot be named for legal reasons.

Hampshire police has set up Operation Flamborough to probe allegations made by two former pupils. Ofsted has made a number of emergency inspections since, demanding an improvement action plan.

An internal inquiry reviewing Ofsted's previous inspections at the school between 2011 and 2013 concluded that three inspections were “problematic” and “failed to get underneath concerns at the school”.