Cherwell Upper School in Oxford has opened its new buildings after a 25-year wait.

The 12 classrooms - three science labs, two technology workshops and an IT network - will replace 18 temporary classrooms.

The new buildings cost £1.1m and the school spent a further £230,000 on IT equipment and £50,000 on landscaping the grounds. It was officially opened on Friday.

Building extensions were first proposed to the school, in Summertown, north Oxford, in the 1970s but there was no cash to pay for them.

Headteacher Martin Roberts, who was appointed in 1981, said: "We got temporary classroom after temporary classroom. A third of the school accommodation was temporary.

"One of my major plans was to get the school re-built and I'd actually given up hope."

Oxfordshire County Council was finally able to pay for the new premises after it sold a piece of land in Summertown for £1.4m.

Mr Roberts said the governors had given money towards the landscaping.

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