ANTICIPATION and excitement is at a Chippenham secondary school, as dreams of a better, brighter future come true.

After years of planning and months of painstaking and controversial negotiation, Hardenhuish School is about to be transformed.

A new arts block and sports centre are just months away from completion.

The new centres, along with the recently-opened new technology centre and a refurbished sixth form block, will come together to create a new and compact school layout.

"By September this year, lots of different projects are going to come together," said headteacher Colin Smith.

"It will be amazing a different place."

The school resisted pressure from the local education authority to take on greater numbers of students in exchange for funding for new buildings.

With 1,397 pupils on the school roll, Mr Smith said it was already large enough and they feared any addition could damage the school ethos.

"We are already classified as a large school and we wanted to make sure the environment was one where most of the teachers know most of the children," he said.

But the school still wanted to update and improve the built environment and had to look for a different source of funding.

The old grammar school block, built in 1939, was no longer considered suitable for modern teaching and needed to be replaced.

Staff also found the long, narrow layout of the school campus inconvenient, with some pupils wasting learning time because of the distance they were walking between classes.

So the staff and governing body took the controversial decision to sell off an area of the school playing fields for residential development to pay for the new building work.

Westbury is currently building 39 four and five-bedroom houses on the site, with prices ranging from £286,000 to £416,000.

The sale has also released financial resources to pay for new classrooms at Kings Lodge School and neighbouring St Nicholas School will gain an extra plot of land for a playing field.

The planning application caused considerable controversy and English Heritage was concerned the new building could damage the setting of the listed Hardenhuish House.

But Mr Smith was confident they had made the right decision. "I always felt it was going to happen," he said. "It was a matter of how long it was going to take to persuade the local community and planners and we are delighted it has happened now."

He said they made every effort to keep residents informed and abided by the guidance offered by English Heritage.

Assistant headteacher Jon Standen said the new arts block would contain seven English teaching classrooms, a performing arts space, a dedicated dance area and drama room.

The block will also have music practise rooms, and a series of screens enabling the most flexible use of the centre's open space.

The centre is due for completion in July.

The sports hall will be large enough to contain four badminton courts. "Perhaps most exciting, we will have a dedicated climbing wall," said Mr Standen.

"DB, a company specialising in climbing walls, is producing one for us it will be a really good resource."

Assistant head Wayne Howells said pupils were already making better progress in the spruce and modern environment of the new design and technology block. "Design and technology teaching now takes a more collaborative and open kind of approach," said Mr Howells.

The pupils start with drawing and work through the design and creation process. The layout of the building helps facilitate the new teaching approach, with lots of different working areas and lots of windows so teachers can keep an eye on their pupils at work.

Mr Howells said: "The pupils respect the building and look after it, taking pride in their surroundings."

The new sixth form block was opened in January, after the refurbishment of existing classrooms. The students have a common room with a small IT room, a classroom and study space.

"There is a feeling that the school will be transformed by the time we start again in September. We are really excited about it," said Mr Smith.