ST LUKE’S School will fully re-open within the next month, according to Swindon Borough Council’s head of education.

This week, Peter Nathan has shed light on the situation regarding the abrupt closure of the Cricklade Road school in September, after many parents complained about the apparent lack of communication about their children’s education.

St Luke’s, which educates pupils with a range of behavioural and educational needs, suddenly closed after safety concerns were expressed by the White Horse Federation, whose members have been given permission to take over the school.

Other worries raised by the WHF included the restructuring of staff where nearly half the school’s teachers – 13 out of 30 – reportedly left, among them the head, the deputy and the most senior teaching assistant.

Since the closure, almost half of pupils went on missing lessons for nearly four weeks while many others were transferred to other schools or received work packs to complete at home.

In the weeks that followed, council bosses managed to hire five new members of staff, allowing pupils to slowly be integrated back into school.

Peter said: “A tremendous amount of work has taken place at St Luke’s to ensure the school is open to all pupils as soon as possible and, as of today, 59 of the 69 pupils are now back in school.

“Pupils are continuing to be reintegrated back into the school, but this process cannot be rushed as many of the young people who attend the school have social, emotional and mental health needs.

“It is therefore crucial that we appoint the right staff and we have been working hard to address the staffing issues over the last few weeks.

“I’m pleased to report that a new head of school has been appointed for January and several teachers and support staff, nine in total, have either started or will be joining in the near future.

“As a result, we expect the school to be operating at full capacity in the next four or five weeks.

“We are working with the White Horse Federation, the nominated academy sponsors, for the school, to put in place a service level agreement.

“This will support the leadership and other aspects of the school. Ofsted have been in this week to carry out a monitoring visit as part of their normal processes.”