EVERY student and member of staff will have to wear a face mask at Holmes Chapel Comprehensive School when it reopens in September.

The masks will be compulsory inside the school buildings, including classrooms and corridors.

Mask wearing is one of the changes which are due to be intoduced at the school from Monday, September 7, when all students and staff return to a full timetable in all subjects.

The school is writing to all families setting out more details about changes in behaviour headteacher Denis Oliver said were needed to ‘keep our school community safe’.

“Staff will be proactive in ensuring that all students wear a face covering in their lessons and inside the school buildings,” he said.

He added that hand hygiene would be compulsory when entering any classroom or office for everyone, every lesson, every day.

He said: “A total of 75 specially-sourced dispensers have been fitted outside of classrooms.

“Every student and member of staff must clean their hands as they enter each lesson. There are no exceptions of excuses. We will need to ensure that all students follow this. This will form part of our healthy hands campaign when we return.

“We will be insisting that students maintain a two-metre exclusion zone around all staff members.

“Students will be shown how to adopt this behaviour in the classroom and enforce this by asking students to step back if they are too close.

“During lesson changes, everyone should stay to the left on corridors in single file and of course, be wearing their face covering.

“All classrooms will have been rearranged so that all students are facing forward and a gap of at least two metres between the teacher and students is in place.

“Rooms will have been deep cleaned and locked over the holiday before the start of term.

“A supply of tissues and cleansing wipes will be available in all classrooms and offices to help maintain a clean and safe working environment. All rooms will be cleaned with industrial cleaning products each day.

“Wherever possible, doors and windows will be kept open to minimise the need for people to repeatedly touch door handles and to improve air flow.”