Staff at a Shirebrook school have set up a one-way system and changed the lunchtime tables as they prepare to welcome dozens of students back through the doors following the coronavirus lockdown.

Shirebrook Academy has spent weeks drawing up the plans to prevent coronavirus being transmitted between students, a limited number of whom are now being invited back into school.

The school has stayed open throughout the lockdown for the children of key workers and vulnerable families – it has had around 20 students in each day – but will now expand its daily provision to serve a further 40 Year 10 students, who are currently in the middle of their two-year GCSE courses.

They are currently being invited for one-to-one meetings with their teachers, who will then resume teaching groups of around 10 students for two days every fortnight from next week (June 15).

Students will each be allocated their own desks and will stay in the same classroom, with the same teachers, all day.

Elsewhere in the building, tape has been placed on the floor to mark out a two-metre queuing distance, a one-way-system has been introduced and lunch-times will be staggered, with students sitting at oblong tables rather than the round tables the school has previously used.

Students will not be required to wear their school uniform to ensure clothes can be washed when they get home, while there is signage reminding them about the need to wash their hands and refrain from touching their mouths.

The measures mean that the school is able to offer theory tutorials in all subjects, although it is not yet ready to allow students to get back to the more practical elements of subjects such as art, technology or PE.

Mark Cottingham, principal, said: “The advice for how we prepare the school to accommodate more students has changed constantly, but we are confident that we have done everything we can to ensure that they can resume their studies as best as they can within the guidelines that we have to abide by.

“We have all had to change our way of lives drastically to ensure we play our part in preventing the spread of coronavirus and the school our students return to will be very different to the one they left when the lockdown was imposed back in March.

“It’s far from ideal and we have yet to find out how much their studies have been impacted by having to stay at home for the last 10 weeks but, although there is a lot to get used to, we are very much looking forward to getting back to teaching students again.”