HEADTEACHER Ron Holland has turned himself into a weather forecaster - after being told his school roof could fly off in gale-force winds.

In blustery conditions, the head of Barton Village First School can be seen venturing outside with his pocket-sized wind monitor in case the wind rises above 70mph and he has to evacuate pupils.

The antiquated conditions in the building in Fettiplace Road, Headington, Oxford, mean Mr Holland has to act as fire warden.

Because the building has no fire alarm he has to walk around the school sounding a klaxon when a fire drill is held. He said: "If the wind goes above 70mph we have to evacuate the building and I have to run up the hill with a wind monitor to check the speed. It is not a joke. The roof can blow off due to the nature of the construction."

Mr Holland inherited the wind meter from his predecessor when he moved to the school in 1995. Pupils had been forced to move out once in the last decade.

He said: "The business world would have a fit if it saw some of the things in school.

"I go round the school with a klaxon when we have a fire drill. It's a bit silly.

"Every school has an external door so they could get out quickly. It's extremely primitive." Fortunately for pupils and staff wind speeds in Oxfordshire only reach gale force levels two or three times a year. A Met Office spokesman said: "There are on average two or three days a year when there are gale force winds in the Thames Valley area." He added that 70 mph winds would possibility, although it would be extremely rare. In September, pupils will be housed in the recently closed Bernwood First School while work is carried out on the new £700,000, state-of-the-art school.

Mr David Brown, premises development officer for the education department, said: "It (the building) has done a good job but it does have a wind speed leading factor and that was one of the reasons that the government agreed with our view that the building needed to be replaced."

The school is one of 80 single storey primary schools in the county relying on manual bells and klaxons to raise the alarm.

Mr Brown said all then county's buildings had been assessed by fire safety officers and electronic alarm systems were being installed when the money became available.

He added: "The view of the fire officer is that he doesn't regard single-storey primary schools as being very high risk because you can evacuate them very quickly."

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