A firefighter who tackled a blaze at a north-east primary school returned to the scene yesterday – to cheer up the youngsters who lost their toys and books.
The nursery and primary one classroom at Kinellar Primary School, at Blackburn, was destroyed in the fire on New Year’s Day.
A 16-year-old has since been charged in connection with the incident, which left many of the youngsters anxious about returning to school.
Yesterday, local firefighter John Coutts surprised the children by dropping by – armed with teddy bears to replace their favourite toys and to reassure them.
He said: “I came along after hearing that the children’s favourite bears, which they took in turns to take home at the weekends had been destroyed, so we’re going to replace them and have given the children the chance to rename them.
“The children have found it hard to understand why someone would want to do this to their school, however the teachers have done all the right things and I hope my being here today will make the children feel safer.”
Teachers at the school, who were “devastated” when they found out about the fire have also been working hard to reassure the children, and launched a new project for the primary one pupils to help them learn who to turn to in an emergency.
Deputy head teacher Ruth Stannard thanked the community for rallying around, and revealed that more than £4,000 has been donated to help the school move forward.
She said: “The children have been very resilient and they’ve had a lot of changes to their routines but have remained positive and adapted well.
“For myself and members of staff it was devastating when we found out about the fire. For teachers who lost their classrooms that’s years and years of resources, as well as work from the first two terms gone – they have been left with absolutely nothing.
“As a result of the fire though the primary one classes have started working on a topic ‘People who help us’ so we’ve had people from the RNLI and a firefighter to try and turn the fire into a learning experience.
“A lot of children were also anxious being back at school and they weren’t sure if it was safe so hopefully this will give them some reassurance.”