MEMBERS of staff at Milton Abbot Primary School are becoming increasingly concerned over the lack of a telephone line, which stopped working over two weeks ago.

The initial issue with intermittent broadband coverage and phone-lines, which began on Monday, June 1, was reported to the school's broadband provider, Southwest Grid for Learning, which tested the lines to reveal a fault on the service held by BT.

The issue was then reported to BT via its fault finding facilities and awaited a possible line check.

Maria Jones, Milton Abbot Primary School administrator, said: 'At some point during the late afternoon the phone line stopped working completely but our broadband returned. The line has been down ever since.

'Numerous reports/conversations via email have taken place with BT explaining that we have a duty of care to all our pupils and staff alike and this was causing a major safeguarding issue for us.'

It had also been highlighted that the rural school depended heavily on a landline given the lack of mobile reception in the village.

Mikaela Rofe, acting headteacher, added that it was 'incredibly dangerous' that they were unable to contact parents over the welfare of children.

'It is incredibly dangerous as we are unable to check for missing pupils if they haven't arrived at school, can't find out from parents if their child has not turned up from the bus, can't contact a parent if a child is ill, can't check who is collecting children from school trips when they are left, or late being collected, etc.

'We also can't do the run of the mill things which are highly important to children and families, such as if they've forgotten their lunch, or lost their PE?kit.

'We also cannot contact people to make arrangements for our residential trip coming up, for our community day and summer fayre, so things have ground to a halt whilst we try to find emails and wait for people to reply.'

The school have since been informed that BT was aware of the fault and was 'awaiting permission to dig up the road'.

Jason Mann, a spokesman for BT, said: 'We are sorry for the delay in restoring the service. It is a complicated underground repair for which we need to secure traffic management as it is a busy road.

'The form of traffic management has not yet been confirmed and needs to be approved by the highways authority so that engineers can carry out the work safely. We are looking to fix the issue as quickly as possible.'