A PRIMARY school is making a song and dance about its plans to raise £100,000 for school improvements.

North Hinksey Primary School wants to modernise classrooms in its 1970s building as the first part of a five-phase redevelopment.

And the school is hosting a night of entertainment in the school hall with Oxford’s Opera Anywhere launching a fundraising campaign.

The operatic show on Thursday, entitled Love and Fidelity, will feature pieces from The Magic Flute, Don Giovanni, Samson and Delilah and The Marriage of Figaro.

Members of the school choir will also get in on the act by performing arias during the interval.

Before the musical entertainment starts, an exhibition will be staged to show a vision of how the school could develop, including a plan to double the size of its computer suite.

Headteacher Sally Wheatley said: “The school was built in the 1970s and has been developed in a piecemeal way since then, so we know the school could function better if it was reconfigured.

“We want to turn the IT suite from a half-size room into a full-size room, so it can cope with a class full of students at a time.

“We have never had anything quite like this at the school before, so we’re hoping as many people as possible come forward and support the event.

“Ticket sales have gone quite slowly at the moment – sometimes people have fixed ideas about opera, but this is an ideal event for someone to get a taste of it.

“People should come along and enjoy themselves and find out more about what we’re planning to do.”

The school, which has 190 pupils, has £100,000 to spend in a capital grant from Oxfordshire County Council but needs to double that amount to pay for the first phase of the planned improvements.

The school, which has a sponsorship deal with Botley law firm Morgan Cole, is hoping to raise at least £700 from the opera event and develop contacts with the local community and other businesses.

Tickets for the concert, which cost £10 for adults and £6 for children, with discount for families of pupils, are available from the school office. Telephone 01865 248626.

cwalker@oxford