A JUNIOR school was forced to close after heavy rainfall sent waves of water crashing through its classrooms.

Parkside Community Junior School was hit by severe floods when wind, rain and thunderstorms battered parts of Derbyshire yesterday .

A brook running alongside the Ashbourne school, which has a total of 270 pupils, filled with rainwater during the early hours of the morning before overflowing at about 9.30am.

As water started seeping through classroom doors, teachers rushed children aged eight to 11 into the main hall.

Staff used compost bags to try to halt the flow of the water and then desk drawers to bale it out.

Head teacher Christopher Mansell said staff at the school, in Cokayne Avenue, were desperately trying to clean up the mess ahead of a visit by Ofsted inspectors on Tuesday.

He said: "It suddenly dropped really dark, like it was late in the evening. Then the heavens just opened and rain started pouring down.

"The water started rushing towards the buildings and we started stacking up compost bags to try to stop it coming into the classrooms.

"But eventually it got too much and water flooded three of the rooms, so we rushed the children out and gathered them in the main hall.

"I switched the electricity off straight away – it was very dramatic. Some of the children were excited but a lot of the younger ones were really scared.

"At one point we were even using empty desk drawers to bale water out of the classrooms until firefighters got to the school."

Mr Mansell said parents were asking what they could do to help and many pledged to return later in the day to help with the clean-up.

"It's a really good display of community spirit," he said.

"We're supposed to have an Ofsted inspection early next week so we're trying really hard to be ready for that.

"The carpets in the classrooms have been wrecked and will need pulling up and replacing – that's where most of the cost will be."

There were reports of power cuts throughout the day in Ashbourne and by 6pm last night there were still more than 370 reported electricity faults across the county.

A spokesman for Central Networks said the number of power failures had not been particularly high for the weather.

Weather experts said temperatures would continue to drop over the weekend.

A Met Office spokesman said: "There was a total of 17mm of rain near the border between Staffordshire and Derbyshire.

"We expected thunderous weather conditions after the heat and we expect temperatures to continue to cool.

"By Monday, it could be as low as 20C or even cooler."