Staff at Westhoughton High School have been volunteering their time to keep pupils equipped for home learning.

Support staff at the school have repurposed its minibus as a mobile stationery van that they have been driving around the town to drop off paper, pens, calculators, art supplies and anything else that students might need.

“We were finding that pupils were running out of paper and supplies,” said head teacher Patrick Ottley-O’Connor. “So some of our support staff, who have been keeping the school running while the teachers teach, volunteered to go out with the bus.”

He said: “Anything we can do to remove the barriers to learning, we’re doing.”

The bus has been making four designated stops so that parents and students can collect supplies in a socially distant way.

The initiative, which was supported by the governing body, comes after the school handed out more than 195 laptops, SIM cards and dongles to students.