CHILDREN at a Romsey school have learnt about the importance of hygiene last week amid the coronavirus crisis.

Teachers at Romsey Abbey C of E Primary School, Church Lane, taught pupils about handwashing with staff using paint to show how well their hands need to be washed.

This comes after pupils in Reception, Year 1 and 6 were welcomed back to school, where classes have now been split into bubbles with 15 people in them to stop the spread of coronavirus.

Hayley Coughlin, teacher of the red bubble, said "The germs got everywhere in red bubble.

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"We decided the best thing to do was wash our hands with soap and water making sure no germs stayed behind.

"The children then had a go at putting ‘painty germs‘ on their hands and washing these off while looking carefully at the areas they sometimes miss when hand washing.

"The coloured paint helped the children realise that hands need washing very thoroughly to get rid of all the germs and were very surprised how difficult it was to get rid of all the traces of paint so then understood that germs were even more difficult because we can’t see them. A really good lesson for us all to learn.”

Key Worker children in the purple bubble with teaching assistant, Marina Vitler, also made a puppet theatre.

Hampshire Chronicle: Pupils making puppets Pupils making puppets

Ms Vitler said: "Last week the theme in our worship has been courage and this had been demonstrated through the story of David and Goliath.

"I wanted the children to practise some of the skills learnt during lockdown, so they used their woodwork skills to make the stage and sewing to make cloths for the puppets and background too.

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"The younger children loved cutting and gluing using their fine motor skills.

"It was great teamwork with the older children supporting the younger ones and they were all justifiably proud of the outcome and we all decided the puppets would help us remember the story more easily.”

The activities took place from Monday, June 8, to Wednesday, June 10.