AN electrical fault has been blamed for a weekend blaze that destroyed the kitchen at Eastleigh's Nightingale Primary School.

Clean-up operations were in full swing at the Blackbird Road campus yesterday but it will be Thursday before all the school's 254 pupils can return to lessons.

Head teacher Simon Cooper-Hind said Key Stage One and Year 6 pupils - amounting to around 160 youngsters - would be able to go to school today and tomorrow. But it would be Thursday before everyone was back.

Flames spread through the kitchen early on Sunday morning causing windows to shatter, cookers to break and part of the ceiling to collapse.

Fire crews from Eastleigh, Redbridge and St Mary's were called to the campus on Eastleigh's Aviary estate at 4am and spent more than an hour at the scene. The fire spread quickly as polystyrene storage boxes dotted around the kitchen caught alight.

Fire investigators went back to the school yesterday and the head teacher said the cause had been traced to an electrical fault in a large fridge freezer in the school kitchen.

"They don't think it is vandalism or a break-in and I'm delighted that it wasn't.

"We don't get much vandalism here, we are very lucky," said Mr Cooper-Hind.

The blaze temporarily knocked out one block in the school which houses the kitchen and spare classrooms were being utilised

in another building on the campus.

But Mr Cooper-Hind said all members of staff had rallied round and been "absolutely superb."

He added: "They went out to explain the situation to parents, they have manned doors for me and all the support staff

have been running round. I'm very lucky to have outstanding staff."