OAKLANDS Park School, Dawlish, is set for a makeover as £3.5 million is to be spent on modernisation and redevelopment.

The school, which teaches children with severe learning difficulties, has 55 pupils from all over Devon, of which 25 are boarders.

A building programme is to start in January, with Devon County Council phasing in money, which has been put aside for school developments, over five years.

'There is no guarantee that we get to the final phase,' said head teacher, Bob Pugh. 'However, there is a lot of goodwill in the council to make sure that we try to get there.'

By Easter 2005 they hope to have completely rebuilt the lower and upper school and will start work on boarding accommodation.

Mr Pugh said: 'I think this will be a tremendous development for the school. Firstly the rooms will be bigger, more modern and will reflect the needs of the children.

'Basically, what we have here at the moment is a 1960s style primary school and with all the teenagers we have here, we need something better.

'We will be having specialist facilities for the first time ever. We will have a specialist ICT, science, art and music areas.'

The pupils and parents from the school are very pleased about the new building work and many provided support by writing to county councillors and Teignbridge MP Richard Younger-Ross pointing out that the school needed money. Mr Pugh believes that this helped greatly.

Teachers are also welcoming the changes as at the moment they do not even have a staff room and many work in offices that are too small.

'What it will mean for the school,' continued Mr Pugh, 'Is that we have a 21st Century working environment for teachers to teach and for pupils to learn. It will enable us to cover all the areas of the curriculum that we currently do but will enable us to take the children a little bit further as we will have all the correct modern facilities. From that point of view it will be great.

'I am delighted that these building works will be taking place and we will be able to provide the children with a school that they really deserve.

'The children here have very complex learning difficulties and will welcome these changes.'