Ashby School's Design and Technology Faculty has now produced an incredible 2,600 items of PPE during the Coronavirus crisis.

And it is all the work of Ed Cooper and his team, based at the school, who have been supplying a number of organisations in the area.

But this was more than just a school department coming to the rescue,

And Ed says the work put in shows the wider value of his subject to those who see it as a secondary subject behind other more 'valuable' and traditional ones - insisting the country would be struggling without schools like Ashby producing vital equipment.

"It's been full-on, and a real team effort involving a lot of people," explained Ed, who is the Head of Design and Technology Faculty at the school.

"We started the manufacture of face visors at the start of lockdown, I saw the need for this - originally using 3D printing, but I found that this was far too slow, four hours for each item.

"I asked the staff to see if they fancied coming in and doing it - to see what we could make out of the materials we'd got.

"It started quite low-scale, but then had donations coming in.

"Then we secured a design to laser cut and we currently have three machines which are enabling us to churn out roughly 75 an hour.

"Working as a team of around eight, we work as a small production line of manufacturers, assemblers and packers to complete and box the orders for needy customers.

"We have currently supplied 48 customers, across the county and further - we've done all the care homes in Ashby, Leicester Royal Infirmary Neonatal unit, Glenfield Hospital, Nottingham Queen's Medical Centre, all 12 GP practices in North West Leicestershire and Leicester City Police - any care-giving people in the area and beyond.

"Our total is 2,600 items of PPE, with 2000 visors, face masks, face shields and ear savers.

"But it shows that without us teaching these subjects at the moment, the country would be really struggling. It's an essential subject.

"I jokingly said I was like the front man of a band, but there's a whole team there - and we're teaching lessons too."

And Ed, a former Ashby School pupil, says that the backing his department has received locally has been vital.

He added: "We had an amazing response to our initial appeal, with lots of frabrics, elastics with companies giving us clear acetates.

"Local support has been tremendous, I set up a GoFundMe page which has raised and incredible £4050 so far, McVities has sponsored us with a donation of plastic to the value of £450 and several boxes of biscuits.

"Taylor Wimpey has given us a 3D printer to enable students to learn about this construction and will assist us to purchase our own in the future.

"A lady from Ashby, Carol West, has supplied face masks and cardboard boxes to transport the visors, she's been an absolute Godsend.

"We have also worked with Canterbury Tools in Walsall who have industrially made 400 visors for us, this has also created a link for future studies."

Now Ed, who has worked at the school for 20 years, says the demand is decreasing but his team are still supplying organisations locally - with some on the doorstep.

He added: "This week production is slowing - we have 100 on order, a care home in Leicester, Specsavers in Ashby and some local industry are requesting support.

"I spoke to the Mayor of Ashby last week who is spreading the word through his contacts, and have supplied the town council with 30."

He says Ashby has joined in with a wide community of Design and Technology departments throughout the country to fill the void in the supply of face visors.

He added: "This is important to us all to provide a service to the front line NHS staff, and is a little something that we can do to support the collective effort.

'Between us, we've made hundreds of thousands of visors.

"There are groups on Facebook and we've been sharing designs and ideas.

"I've worked with schools in Burton and Mansfield, I've given them material too so they can get going with it.

"We have given out everything so far free of charge, all we have asked for is a note of thanks to the school, raising awareness of what we've done, and a photo of people wearing them.

"Our idea is to make a collage showing what we have done to display in the Design Department.

"But the school's been moving into the modern world over the past few weeks, who knows what'll happen in the future.

"Alongside all of this, we're still trying to teach pupils remotely, plan work, calculate grades.

"It's a challenging time at the moment. It's about the mental resilience of the kids too, a lot of them contact us because they're struggling without the regularity of school."