Sunday 24th February 2008 will go down in the history books of Fairlands as possibly one of the hardest days the school has ever been through. But it will also go down as one of the finest days in Fairlands' history - as it proved that everyone in our fantastic school will always pull together when faced with challenging times.

Events began around 5am this morning, when local neighbours spotted flames in the school and alerted the fire services. Deepest thanks go to these neighbours, for without their vigilance, the fire damage would have been much worse.

Mr Horner arrived at the school around 6am, to find the upper building filled with dark smoke. By the time I arrived, there were 6 large fire engines and many fire and police officers and the situation was already firmly under their control.

The main area that is seriously damaged is the end Year 4 class, but most of the upper building has experienced smoke damage and there is soot covering most surfaces. This is likely to take some time to clean up properly, but we are anticipating that we will be able to reopen some sections of the building over the course of next week.

Although the lower building is unaffected, the whole school will be closed tomorrow in order to allow time for us to put a critical incident management plan in place. I will be meeting with local authority officers in order to establish how long the clean-up operation will take but please rest assured that our first priority is to get the children back as soon as possible into a clean, safe learning environment.

I would like to say an enormous thank you to all the staff and parents who have been ready with offers of help, support and much needed cups of tea during the day! After a very long and upsetting day, my enduring feeling is a huge sense of pride that I am headteacher of such a wonderfully supportive school community.

I will keep you all informed of any developments as and when they arise.

Robert Staples, Headteacher