United Church SchoolsTrust will be closing the school in the week before Christmas and has given parents a deadline of this Friday to decide whether or not they want to remain loyal to the company and transfer pupils to its alternative Hull Collegiate or Lincoln Minster schools.


In the meantime a parents group has set up a charitable foundation in a bid to save the school by getting it transfered back to them to run or establishing a new prep school at Elsham Hall.


And it claims that UCST is standing in its way by not releasing financial information or engaging in talks with Ali Khan who is willing to take Brigg Prep on and keep it open.


With a week to go to the deadline, a spokesman for UCST said, “Over a third of Brigg parents have already signalled their intention to send their children to the merged school at Hull Collegiate and these numbers are growing on a daily basis.” It was expected that ‘most teachers’ would choose to transfer to Hull too, where jobs are protected up to the end of the summer term.


Although it had received a number of representations from parents claiming to represent the parental community at Brigg, UCST said it had ‘received no formal approach from any group for serious, substantive talks on alternative options for the future of the school.’


It said that it had ‘tried to be helpful where we have received reasonable requests for financial information,’ although the parents group argues that it was still waiting for a response, a full week after asking for access to accounts.


Group spokesman Phil Eastwood said, “UCST are actualy trying to avoid negotiations by claiming that they have not received emails from our barrister. They are delaying access to the management accounts until after the deadline forced upon parents to notify them whether they wish to accept a place at Hull or not.


“The reality on the ground is that paprents would like the choice of where to send their children. If Brigg remains an option we are confient that parents will do as they have indicated to us - keep their children at brigg prep School. UCST's figures are an indication of events if the school cannot be saved, not a forgone conclusion that parents want to move their children to Hull,” he said.


* UCST also fully refutes a rumour circulating in Brigg last week that the school had been sold to the developers neighbouring its Bigby Street site. It said ‘UCST can categorocally deny that. It has had no contact whatsoever – no approach to and no approach from – Golden Living.’