THE HEAD teacher of a special school in Penarth has said that staff can produce 24,000 face visors for essential workers.

Ysgol Y Deri, on Sully Road, has designed and made over 400 plastic face visors for health workers and care home staff in the Vale.

Now the school has ordered enough material to produce 24,000 visors which Head Master Christopher Britton says will be distributed by the end of May.

“We kept it very local and we’re working very closely with our own social services to get our care homes what they need”, said Mr Britton.

“They’ve (the visors) been really well received”.

According to Mr Britton, the material for the visors was purchased using funds from the school budget.

“We’re closed as a school at the moment so if we can use some of the funding we would have used to help the rest of the public sector”, he said.

“We talk about school budget but actually it’s a public sector budget, isn’t it?

“So if I can help some of my colleagues in social services and help make their care homes safe then I think that’s a good thing to be doing”.

The visors were designed by staff members Nathan James and Ben Milne who made the prototypes with laser cutters in the school.

“Nathan and Ben have a team of a few others coming in to help”, Mr Britton continued.

“So, we’ve got a mini production line to cut the plastic, then laser cut it and put everything into packs with instruction sheets for assembly.

“We can make them here at a rate of around 600 a day, but Llantwit Major Comp have asked if they could come in and support us, and they’ve got a laser cutter so we’ll be close to 1,000 a day with their help.

“That gives us a months worth of work, working five days a week, nine hours a day which we’re quite happy to do.

“We’ve also been asked to try and design child friendly visors for paediatric wards, so that they’ve got Micky Mouse ears on to make it less scary for the kids”.

Mr Britton said that the visors had been approved for use by the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board.

Previously public suppliers of face visors have been stopped by the health board from delivering equipment to NHS staff because of difficulties getting it approved.

Jason Aspinall from the Vale Visors group in Barry was told his visors would have to be approved for use after he donated them to several hospitals in Wales, including Llandough Hospital in Penarth.

A spokeswoman for the Cardiff and Vale University Health Board said: “We are only accepting PPE via our official suppliers to ensure that the items meet our stringent safety standards”.