Class­es at the Gloster Lodge Mora­vian Pri­ma­ry School, Bel­mont, re­sumed this morn­ing – with a thanks­giv­ing to wel­come back the staff and stu­dents fol­low­ing Tues­day’s fa­tal shoot­ing out­side the school.

The school which has a stu­dent pop­u­la­tion of 239, had been closed for three days af­ter the killing of Amoa Howe steps from the front gate on Feb­ru­ary 20.

Fear­ful par­ents had opt­ed to keep their chil­dren away as they had re­mained trau­ma­tised af­ter hear­ing the gun­shots and see­ing Howe’s bloody body ly­ing in the road, as they stood on the sec­ond-floor bal­cony.

Al­though the planned ser­vice did not get un­der­way un­til 9 am, par­ents and teach­ers were seen ar­riv­ing to the school cau­tious­ly as they looked around at­ten­tive­ly be­fore hur­ry­ing in­to the school yard.

Of­fi­cials from the Stu­dent Sup­port Ser­vices Di­vi­sion were present at the school to­day, to be­gin trau­ma in­ter­ven­tion and coun­selling with those present.

Dur­ing a stake­hold­er meet­ing at the school the day af­ter the shoot­ing TTUTA staff rep­re­sen­ta­tive Mar­isha John ar­rived at the school around 8.30 am – and ex­pressed dis­ap­point­ment with the lack of po­lice pres­ence at the school.

A call for a po­lice post dur­ing school hours was among the rec­om­men­da­tions com­ing out of a stake­hold­er meet­ing at the school last week.

PTA Pres­i­dent Verdell Hare­wood com­ment­ed on the slow ar­rival of both stu­dents and staff as she said many were still scared.