School to stay shut until after Christmas due to roof concerns

A primary school that has had to close due to concerns over the safety of the building's roof will not reopen before Christmas, its principal has said.

Róisín Blackery, principal of Nazareth House Primary School in Londonderry, said specialist engineers were at the school site again on Monday.

The school closed on 3 December after an inspection of the roof found that it was unsafe.

The Education Authority (EA) has said urgent remedial works have been prioritised to allow it to reopen as soon as possible.

Speaking to BBC Radio Foyle's North West Today programme the principal said: "We will not be under our roof before Christmas.

"The aim is that we will all be learning face to face together at the start of January when we return after the Christmas holidays."

She said the forced closure of the school had been especially difficult to take in the weeks before Christmas.

"It's when we're doing all the loveliest things and we're connected and we're joyful and we're find it very challenging at the moment to be apart."

Plans are now in place to accommodate the children daily in the Bishop Street youth club near the school site.

The club will provide a "well-being hub," Ms Blackery said, and operate daily between 09:00 and 15:00 GMT.

"It's not going to be a formal learning environment, it's going to be as close as to what school feels like at this time of year," she said.

The school's carol service will go ahead, while pupils will come together for their Christmas dinner later this week with the support of local businesses.

Ms Blackery said that promised to be a "very special event" and they had been overwhelmed by the support of the local community and by offers from several local businesses to support pupils.

"I think when times get tough in Derry, you find that people really have your back," she said.

The school has been operating on the Bishop Street site since 1902.

More than half of its 203 student body come from the Bogside, Bishop Street and Brandywell areas of Derry.

Parent Malachy McCarron, who also sits on the board of governors, said the school had made the right decision to close until the problem with the roof is fixed.

"I think they really had no choice in terms of the safety issues, obviously being unable to bring the pupils back into the school buildings," he said.

"We understand the constraints the school are under, and they had really no option in the short term before Christmas but to avail of the very generous offer from the youth clubs and others in the local community."

He said many children were continuing with educational activities as the school winds down for Christmas.

However, he said he would be concerned about the potential impact of the closure on the education of his two boys, Cathal and Caomhán, who attend Nazareth House, in the longer term.

Last week parent Terri Lamberton, who has two children at the school - seven-year-old Daniel, who has special educational needs, and 10-year-old daughter Gail - said she was worried about the impact of the school's closure.

She said they were "devastated and concerned at how long this was going to go on for".

In a statement, the Council for Catholic Maintained Schools' (CCMS) said it was working alongside the Department of Education and the EA to put in place "arrangements for supervised learning for families who need it until the Christmas holidays and for all pupils to return to face to face classes in January".

"The EA maintenance service is assessing the remedial works required to reopen the school premises," the CCMS said.

Speaking in the Assembly on Monday, the Sinn Féin MLA for Foyle Pádraig Delargy called on the Education Minister Paul Givan to visit the Derry school.

Delargy said there were two schools whose roofs had collapsed or were in need of urgent repair in the city.

He said it would not be lost on people in Derry how that could be so when another school "received a fourth pitch" – a reference to a row earlier this year over funding for a school football pitch at Lisneal College in the city.

The Department of Education has been asked for comment.