What a lovely birthday present!

I was delighted to read one of our parents, Mrs Tania Buss, praising our efforts in getting students back to school following the fire here over the Easter holidays (Letters, May 7).

The reason we were able to do this was entirely down to the amazing efforts of so many separate groups of people and individuals, all of whom have shown themselves to be "worth every penny".

If it hadn't been for the very speedy action of the fire service, it is clear we would not have had a school to return to.

We were very fortunate, too, to have contractors already on hand, as we were about to embark on a major building programme.

The contractors - Westridge Construction Limited - worked on site from day one to make the school safe quickly for the students' return and staff from the Local Education Authority, together with consultants from the Mackellar Schwerdt Partnership, sprang into action to help co-ordinate the huge task.

Local contractors, such as Monks and Haydens, made themselves immediately available to get things done quickly.

We were also overwhelmed by local community support.

Community centres such as Hillcrest and Shakespeare Hall in Newhaven opened their doors to us in the first two weeks when we couldn't go back to the school site and many schools provided us with support, such as photocopying and access to emails.

The local media played an important part in the first two weeks, effectively becoming our means of communicating with all our families.

The response of parents has been heartening and the students have been fantastic.

For the next few weeks, we will continue to be quite limited in the curriculum we can offer and yet I have not heard one complaint.

Staff continue to work extremely hard and imaginatively, ensuring all students continue to learn and make progress.

Many staff returned from their holidays early to ensure planning for the new term could start immediately.

I am particularly grateful to Roy Bellingham, a teacher at Tideway for 35 years, and to Simon Hassle, our site manager, who have been the school representatives, discussing with contractors and others the clean-up and planning the rebuilding.

Roy's calm manner and attention to detail has been tremendously important in helping to retain our morale.

Is Mr money worth every penny? I will leave this for others to judge. But I am absolutely certain money alone is not enough.

It is the collective will to rebuild an even better school and, in so doing, support the continuing regeneration of Newhaven, which sustains us all.

Thank you everybody who has supported us.

-Adrian Money, head teacher, Tideway School, Newhaven