A failing school is set to close its doors after the number of pupils applying to the school dropped.

Burnham Park E-ACT Academy launched a consultation to close the school and transfer its Year 7-10 pupils to nearby Bourne End Academy earlier this year.

A spokesman said since the 2012-13 academic year, the academy has seen a 63 per cent fall in pupil numbers – going from 633 to 235.

The school was also rated inadequate in its latest Ofsted report, published on May 15.

When the public consultation opened in January this year, there were just 22 pupils in Year 7, compared to a total capacity for 160 students – making the year group just 13 per cent full and plunging the school into “significant financial difficulty”.

Across the whole academy, there were only 235 students, making the academy less than 30 per cent full.

The 118 Year 7-10 pupils at the school, in Opendale Road, will be given the option to transfer to Bourne End Academy when it closes at the end of the school year.

The spokesman said: “This is a sad time for us all, however we would like to reassure academy parents and students that they will have our close support over the coming months and during the transition to Bourne End E-ACT Academy.”

The spokesman also said it is the school’s aim to move every member of staff from Burnham Park to Bourne End, adding: “This means that the number of students per teacher at Bourne End will fall to 11, the best of any mainstream secondary school in both Buckinghamshire and Wycombe.”

The school is now in a ‘listening period’, which will end on July 12.