A school which was targeted by an intruder earlier this year is to pilot a new plan for dealing with crises, Education Minister Terry Lister announced on Friday.

Mr. Lister told the House of Assembly that Spice Valley Middle School in Warwick was working with the Department of Communication and Information (DCI) on a "crisis communication plan" for a number of scenarios.

He later told that the school had been chosen to pilot the scheme because of the way an incident involving an intruder at the school in January had been wrongly reported in the media.

He said the idea was to improve the way in which the school communicated with the press following such an incident.

He said: "Spice Valley had an incident that took place on its grounds and the story was originally written up that something was happening in relation to the school. Someone came onto the premises and caused a bit of a ruckus. It was nothing to do with the school at all."

He said staff at Spice Valley were "very sensitive to the reaction and where they found themselves press-wise and they really wanted something done so we appeased them. They would have liked something more aggressive".

He added: "The school decided to look a bit closely at its crisis intervention type processes and is working with DCI now to put some practices in place. The issue is how we are going communicate challenges."

He told the House that journalists would be invited to take part in a field-test of the plan in June, prior to it being implemented in September.

"Because it is important that parents are provided with accurate information during an emergency, we plan to invite the media to be a part of the field-test, so that the media are aware of the critical role they play in communicating correct information to the public," he said.

Mr. Lister also talked about two separate events which have caused CedarBridge Academy to hit the headlines in the last week: a bomb threat and a pellet gun found on the premises.

He praised staff and students at the school for the response to the bomb hoax last Friday (April 28). The call was made from within the school and meant it had to be evacuated while a bomb disposal team carried out a search.

"There were reports of student indiscipline but we must be fair because we are talking about young people," said Mr. Lister. "This whole incident took place within a timeframe of about 60 minutes and because of the manner in which everyone conducted themselves, students were able to resume classes well before the normal end of the school day."

He said the student in possession of the pellet gun ? who shot at a girl causing a minor injury to her arm ? would undergo a disciplinary hearing to determine what action should be taken against him.

He told the House: "I know that from time to time concern arises about safety in schools. Let me take this opportunity to reassure every parent of a child who attends any school in the Bermuda public school system that their child is safe."

He pointed out that $1 million would be spent over the next year on security guards for middle and senior schools to protect "our campuses from intruders and from inappropriate behaviour".

He told the House that the majority of students were disciplined, law-abiding and a source of pride to their teachers and parents.

"We will not allow the actions of a few to threaten the wellbeing of an entire school community," he said.

Mr. Lister said afterwards that the recent incidents at CedarBridge were "linked together by time and time only" and that the number of troublesome students was "very, very small".

"Every time we have an incident the correct thing is to be concerned and look to see if we are defending ourselves properly against it," he said.

Shadow Education Minister Neville Darrell told that he welcomed the plan for Spice Valley and agreed with the Minister that "by and large, schools are safe environments".

"To have an alarmist view would be irresponsible," he said.