Parents desperate for their children to win a place at a specialist school despite it facing closure are to meet education bosses today.

St Anne's School in Rotten Row, Lewes, is set to close by 2007, with a drop in pupil numbers being blamed.

Despite this threat, parents of children with learning and physical disabilities still want their children to be given a place.

Parent governor Julie Champion said she knows of eight parents who made the school their first choice for secondary education but none of the requests has been approved.

Instead, they have been offered places at other special or mainstream schools which they do not feel are suitable.

Ms Champion said: "They feel St Anne's is nicer and better for them."

The parents are due to meet Peter Weston, assistant director of pupil and family services at East Sussex County Council, to plead for their children to be admitted.

Among them is Davina Eggleton, whose son Daryl, 11, a pupil at Chiddingly Primary School, has epilepsy, dyslexia and dyspraxia. He cannot hold a pen, does not read and write and has general learning difficulties.

Ms Eggleton, of Willetts Field, Chiddingly, said mainstream schools will not take him.

"He has the learning ability of a six-year-old. Chiddingly is a very small school - it has only 60 children. He has known half the children all his life so they all make allowances for him. St Anne's would particularly deal with his problems. We worry about it all the time because we don't know what is going to happen."

John Smith's son Alex has a language disorder. Mr Smith, of Heathfield Road, Seaford, said: "We feel he needs a more specialist environment. In a mainstream school, they are all way ahead of him, which means he has to be excluded from the class and almost taught separately.

"We don't understand how they can dismiss the possibility of the school when they don't know whether it is closing or not."

Diane Lyons' daughter Charlotte, ten, has physical difficulties. She also has learning difficulties and is four to five years behind her peers.

Charlotte, of Saltwood Road, Seaford, has been offered a place at Seaford Head.

Mrs Lyon said she was terrified at the prospect of going to a large mainstream senior school, even though she already goes to a mainstream primary.

Mr Weston confirmed the council was not offering places for St Anne's, even if children were suitable, and said it was right to plan as if the school would close.

The decision on whether the school, which has 75 pupils and can cater for 110, should stay open has been put out to consultation and its fate will finally be decided on April 15.