A crisis for Woodcote Junior School pupils was averted last week when £800,000 funding was allocated for building new classrooms.

The school in Dunsfold Rise, Coulsdon, had endured a long wait to hear whether it would get sufficient cash from the council to cope with a rise in pupil levels at the recently expanded Woodcote Infant School.

The project will be funded jointly by Government and council cash and is due for completion by May 2002.

It will provide the junior school with an extra four classrooms plus a replacement for an existing small classroom.

The school will also get a glazed link between the two existing school blocks and the new block, a new lift serving two floors, and other improvements.

Headteacher Tony Pratchett said teachers and governors are relieved and excited. He said: “We are pleased the new classrooms are of good size and that the two schools (infant and junior) are to be joined

together. This will make a vast difference to security.”

The development follows a troubled £750,000 project completed for September 2000 intakes at the infant school last year, which kept class numbers

below 30 in line with the Government pledge.

Governors are relieved at the good news, which follows concerns raised recently by MP Richard Ottaway that the junior school might not be able to keep class numbers down.

He said: “I am pleased but why couldn't the school have had the money from the council earlier?

“I think it's within the ability of the headmaster to do it in time for the surplus of pupils but why do they have to push him to the brink?”

A Croydon Council spokesman defended the time it has taken to allocate the funding and said plans were

made well in advance. Building work is scheduled to start on July 25.