The closure of Twickenham Academy’s sixth form was due to the entire school’s poor performance rather than under-subscription, the head of the school’s trust has said.

It left six children in limbo and having to find a new school.

Twickenham Academy, in Whitton, was placed in special measures after an Ofsted inspection earlier this year.

This summer it and the under-performing Hampton Academy were handed over to the Multi-Academy Trust (MAT), which also runs Teddington and Waldegrave schools.

The trust’s joint executive head teacher, John Wilkinson – who is also headteacher of Teddington School – said the priority was bringing the entire school out of special measures.

Mr Wilkinson said: “We decided not to take on new students this summer – and we won’t next summer either.

“The next intake will start September 2018.

“It was decided this was necessary to improve the rest of the school.”

Councillor Paul Hodgins, who is Richmond Council’s member for schools, said he thought the sixth form’s hiatus was the “right decision”.

Hampton and Twickenham academies were run by the Learning Schools Trust (LST), but were handed over to the newly formed MAT this summer after achieving poor exam results and scathing Ofsted reports.

The school has also struggled to recruit sixth form students, with six children stranded after having completed Year 12 this summer.

They have been assisted by MAT in finding new schools, Mr Wilkinson said.

He said: “Yes, there has been a recruitment issue as well, but this is not the reason for the sixth form closing.

“But it is hard to recruit new pupils when the exam results are not good.”

He said MAT had already implemented new measures to ‘rescue’ the school, including fully staffing all departments.

Cllr Hodgins said he was ‘hopeful’ the school would get back on track in the hands of MAT.

Cllr Hodgins said: “In schools and education, everything starts with good leadership.

“The people at the Multi-Academy Trust have good leadership and so I am confident.

“There is also a new head teacher at Twickenham Academy who I am sure will do a great job.”

Cllr Hodgins said the council gave ‘as much help as possible’ to LST during its time in charge of the academies.