A SCHOOL for disabled children may be forced to cancel pupils’ outings and educational visits – because it can’t afford to keep its minibuses on the road.

Unless Cedar Hall Special Needs School, in Hart Road, Thundersley, can find a way to bring in more cash, it has warned it will have to scrap its three ageing buses.

The vehicles are funded by Cedar Hall’s parent-teacher association and used daily to ferry students to horticultural and agricultural lessons at Writtle College, swimming classes, sports events and residential trips.

All three are old – one has been running for 20 years – and now cost a small fortune to run and maintain.

The PTA says it would cost at least £30,000 to buy just one modern replacement and it simply doesn’t have the money.

Association vice-chairman Heather Blakemore is launching an appeal in the hope of bringing in more cash.

Mrs Blakemore, 38, of Henry Drive, Leigh, said: “The children who go to Cedar Hall can’t sit in a classroom for seven hours a day.”

Her ten-year-old son, Ethan, who has epilepsy, Asperger’s syndrome and other learning difficulties started at Cedar Hall in September, as he could no longer cope in a mainstream school.

She added: “A lot of their learning is out of the classroom. The trips are brilliant and the highlight of Ethan’s week. The safety requirements for the minibuses are very thorough and they have to be inspected every six or eight weeks, so it costs a lot of money to keep them in tip-top condition.

“We don’t have a target for how much we want to raise, because this is going to be an ongoing thing.

“We just need as much money as possible.”

Cedar Hall caters for children between the ages of five and 16, who have speech, language, emotional, behavioural or autistic disabilities.

It plans to start the fundraising drive with a Christmas bazaar at noon on Saturday, December 13.

Deputy headteacher Nick Maxwell said: “The minibuses are absolutely vital to the life skills of our pupils.

“Our residential trips are the first time many of them go away from home.

“Reading, writing and maths are important, but so is getting out in the community and going to shops.”