The head of Scotland’s national school for children with motor impairments plans to open full-time to all pupils by August, and believes some schools for complex needs pupils need not have closed during lockdown.

Craighalbert Centre chief executive officer Bob Fraser said that because it had scaled back, rather than fully closing, the school now has a model to allow it to open full-time for all pupils by around 13 August.

Families said having the school in Cumbernauld open throughout the coronavirus crisis had helped to prevent their children’s learning from regressing, with one mother describing it as a “lifeline”.

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To accommodate the social distancing needed - with classes having changed to one-to-one support - the school made adaptations, including extending the use of outdoor classroom and therapy space and buying equipment to provide virtual story massage lessons through video-conferencing (see picture) for shielding pupils and families.

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Mr Fraser told the PA news agency: “For many schools, the challenge now is to reopen, and what is their model for reopening?

“Our advantage was we never closed. We geared down, significantly, while we tried to learn and understand, but because we had complex needs children there was never the requirement for us to stop providing services.”

Asked if other schools could learn from what his school had done, he said Craighalbert was in a “very different situation” from mainstream education, but added: “I think there’s more learning for other special schools. Perhaps more of them could have kept going in a limited way.”

The school was at a “huge advantage” in adapting as classes tend to have no more than six pupils to one staff member, Mr Fraser said. But the “biggest blockage” was staff childcare, as a result of mainstream schools not planning to go back full-time when they return in August.

Mr Fraser said the plans in various council areas were “very fragmented” and to overcome this, he will run a childcare hub for his staff.

Being able to remain open has made a “significant difference” in the physical, emotional and psychological wellbeing of pupils, he said.

If they had faced months unable to use specialised technology at the centre, such as an eye-gaze machine - which allows pupils to communicate via a computer using eye movement - as well as the other therapy equipment, their “learning would have regressed”, Mr Fraser said.

“Being away from that [equipment] for months, children’s ability to engage would deteriorate. We’ve maintained that,” he said.

“We’ve maintained their physical health, not just in terms of their physiotherapy, their movement things and like that...the risk with many of our children because of their mobility is chest infections, so we were very conscious that we wanted to mitigate against our children going into hospital.”

Kate McMaster takes her daughter Kim from their home in Glasgow to Craighalbert for therapy and education. The six-year-old has the neurological condition Rett syndrome and is unable to walk and talk, but has no cognitive impairment.

Her mother told PA: “This has been an absolute lifeline for us. Instead of feeling really isolated, we’ve really felt supported and cared for through the school.

“It’s critical for Kim to maintain the levels of therapy and teaching that she gets and if she hadn’t had it, she would definitely have deteriorated. It’s just been such a relief.

“We were really quite terrified when coronavirus broke out and schools shut. All other services for her shut as well. We’re unbelievably grateful that Bob and the staff have gone above and beyond to support all these kids.

“Some families at other schools have really reached crisis point.”