Woodborough Primary School determined to restart lessons swiftly

The Victorian part of the school sustained the most damage

The head teacher of a primary school badly damaged by fire said the school was determined to get children back to learning as soon as possible.

The fire broke out at Woodborough Primary School in Wiltshire on Friday night with the in the loss of two classrooms and a staff room.

Head teacher Sarah Brewis said staff were contingency planning how to resume lessons possibly from Wednesday.

Parent Alex Wyatt said the impact of the fire had not yet sunk in.

The fire at the school, which has 160 pupils enrolled aged from four to 11, broke out in the oldest part of the buildings that date back to the Victorian era.

Fire investigators said they believed it had started accidentally but the matter was now with the insurance company.

Ms Brewis said: "We know it started in the roof, we don't know the actual cause.

"We are waiting for the fire inspectors report to be released."

She added that "thankfully" fire doors held back much of the fire with "a lot of the school left undamaged".

"We are absolutely determined to make the school safe and sort it out so we can have them all back and learning together as soon as we possibly can," Ms Brewis added.

"We've had many offers of support of different classrooms that we might use, vacant classrooms in other schools, village halls and studios, lots of people have offered their support.

"We've become very efficient at remote learning, we weren't hoping to return to it, but it is something we can do and combine with in- school learning as well so there is plenty of scope for ensuring the education continues."

Classrooms were severely damaged during the fire

In the wake of the blaze a Gofundme page was set up raising more than £4,000 with a second set up by the school PTA raising more than £10,000.

Ms Wyatt, whose three children attend the school, said: "It's been quite a weekend, but we are feeling very positive.

"My phone was full of messages [on Friday]. All the parents were in contact, we couldn't quite believe it.

"When you hear the school is on fire, you don't image the whole roof to be ablaze, the pictures were really, really shocking.

"It hasn't really sunk in [for the children], they know there has been a fire. They are sad about it, we've had lots of questions.

"As the weeks go on and the days go on, it will sink in a bit more, but we're used to home learning and the kids are really resilient. I'm confident we will bounce back."