CHURCHFIELDS School has been closed to pupils for emergency repairs after bricks and tiles from the main building fell down.

Head teacher Steve Flavin made the decision to close the school, which has 1,000 pupils aged 11 to 16, after the main building was deemed unsafe by engineers.

Pupils from school in Salcombe Grove, Old Walcot, were sent home on Wednesday with a note stating that they would be able to return on Monday after the urgent work was carried out. Parents had no prior warning that this was going to happen.

After fencing off the area where the bits of building had fallen, a structural survey was carried out, which resulted in the closure. The closure has also given the school the chance to carry out work on two steep slopes, which Mr Flavin also considers a health hazard especially after a visitor to the school fell down on one of them on Tuesday.

He said: "The main building has now been declared safe, so there is no further risk to pupils and they will be able to return as normal on Monday.

"We also have two slopes which we are making safer. They have become increasingly dangerous especially in the wet weather. I was not prepared to have pupils and staff walking around a site which was not 100 per cent safe."

As well as the existing handrails, the slopes are also being laid with a non-slip surface. Eventually one slope will be closed to pupils and staff altogether, while the other will be completely redesigned to make it safer.

Dick Mattick, a former teacher at the school who is the secretary of its Parent Teachers Association, said: "When you think of what happened at Grange Junior all those years ago when the roof collapsed, resulting in the death of one pupil, you can understand why a head has to be so careful over safety matters."

Parent Brian Davis, of Walcot, who has a 16-year-old boy at the school, said: "I can't believe the school's falling down. Don't they carry out regular maintenance on the building?

"It hasn't been an inconvenience for us as our boy is old enough to look after himself and sees it as a holiday, but you could see how parents of smaller children might be put out, having to suddenly find care for them."

Newsdesk