A FIRE which destroyed three-quarters of a school and required 100 firefighters to bring under control was the biggest in the county in five years.

Two fire crews remained at Selsey Academy yesterday afternoon damping down smouldering hotspots and were expected to remain onsite last night.

The cause of the fire on Sunday morning, which reduced the school’s assembly hall, kitchens, science and art classrooms to burnt out metal, was still unclear as The Argus went to print last night.

There is also uncertainty as to how almost 500 secondary pupils will be taught when the school holidays end in a fortnight’s time.

Selsey Town Council chairman Mike Beales suggested teaching pupils in the grounds of the burnt-out school would be preferable to busing 500 youngsters more than 40 miles every day to neighbouring schools.

He suggested pupils could be taught in temporary classrooms in the school’s playing field rather than be re-located to other Kemnal Academies Trust schools in the county.

A fire investigation has been launched but officers told The Argus last night that it was too early to say what caused the devastating inferno.

West Sussex Fire and Rescue staff said that they were not ruling out arson but initial indications revealed no signs that it was started deliberately.

Pupils at the school will collect their GCSE results on Thursday at the TKAT-run Seal Primary 400 metres away.

Selsey Town Council chairman Mike Beales said: “The reality is this was a disaster we could have managed without, we have lost a good school.

“I’m hoping somebody is sitting around a table at county hall with TKAT and working out how to find 500 students somewhere to go.

“There’s a lot of fields at the school and I just wonder if it’s possible to put in Portakabins while they rebuild the school.

“I think busing 500 pupils from Selsey to Chichester would be a logistical nightmare and I’m not sure any school has the capacity to accommodate that many extra pupils.”

West Sussex County Councillor Bernard Smith said the headache of finding school places for so many pupils in such a short space of time was compounded by the fact that Selsey Academy was not a local authority school.

He said: “The most logical solution would be for the pupils to go to Chichester High School but that is down to the firm.

“It is a shame it’s not a council run school because we could go full steam ahead in resolving this.”