ELMSLIE Girls' School is to close at the end of this term due to mounting debts and lack of pupils signing up for the year 2000.

Staff and pupils were shocked to find a letter on their doormats on Tuesday morning informing them of the decision to close down the school.

It also means the loss of 26 jobs including the teaching staff and cleaners at the school.

A statement issued on Tuesday by the Bishop of Blackburn, the Rt Rev Alan Chesters, head of the diocese in which Elmslie belonged, said that the main reason for closing the school was "an overwhelming backlog of debt."

Bosses now say their main concern is to find a new home for the 125 pupils currently attending the fee-paying Church of England school.

Elmslie is the last independent single-sex school in the Fylde and its closure in August will see the end of 80 years education at the Whitegate Drive site.

Rumours of financial trouble had been circulating since 1994 when nearby Arnold School offered to amalgamate with Elmslie which was rejected. Now it appears that Arnold may take on the pupils after they issued a statement saying they are ready to meet with any parent from the stricken school and discuss the possible transfer of their child.

According to some parents, the closure had been looming for a time as it had been introducing cost cutting measures.

One parent who removed her child from the school earlier this year after she felt standards had fallen to an unacceptable level said: "It had got to the point where they had cut costs by combining year groups together," said the parent.

"That meant that my daughter was being taught in the same class as pupils in the year below her and sometimes meant that she was being taught work she had already done a year earlier.

"They also angered a great number of parents when they introduced a 'millennium offer' of reduced fees for the junior school meaning that some people were paying substantially less money for the same education."

The school building and grounds are now expected to be put on the market.