PLANS to admit more pupils to a popular and successful village primary school have taken a step forward.
Durham County Council's planning committee has granted permission for an extension to Coxhoe Primary School, which recently received a glowing Ofsted report.
Earlier this year the council approved the raising of the admission limit for first year pupils from 30 to 35 from September.
The council has provided extra money for the move and £96,604 will be spent on the development that comes on top of other work taking place in the school.
The work will include a new entrance, office, an extension to a classroom, a new exit from the reception classroom, a Key Stage One group room in a former office and partitioning of part of the dining room to create a Key Stage Two group room and library.
The school has won funding to install a new computer suite and hopes to refurbish its three toilet blocks in the coming year and continue its reception class revitalisation scheme, helped by the school association.
The school hopes to recruit four new teachers for the new school year - two to replace members of staff who are leaving and two new teachers, funded by Government grants, to teach the large number of pupils in both Key Stages.
Work is currently under way to replace windows in the school. The work, jointly funded by £10,952 from the council and £22,237 from the school, had been planned for years and the school hopes it will be completed by September.
A rolling programme of redecoration will restart during the summer holiday, having been postponed because of the replacement of boilers and other priority building work.
Head John Brennan said: "There's obviously a very busy time ahead for the school and contractors but we're hopeful that this new work will be completed in time for the children coming back in September.''
The school stresses that it has no association with the action group Coxhoe Kids in Coxhoe School - which campaigned for the extra places - but is 'very grateful' for the £250 donation the group made to school funds
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