Pupil numbers soar at new village school

TEACHERS expect a village school - which has yet to open - to more than quadruple in size in two years.

Pupil numbers at The Vine Inter-Church Primary School will soar from 94 pupils at the start of term next month to 420 in September 2007. The first 94 children are due to start at the school on Monday, September 5.

However, they will be housed in four temporary classrooms while the permanent building takes shape alongside.

The new school, for youngsters aged four to 11, was not due to open until September 2006 but the growing demand for places meant Cambridgeshire County Council, the local education authority, had to bring its plans forward by a year.

Debbie Higham, headteacher, said she was excited about the school's future.

The 47-year-old said: "Everyone, from parents to governors are so welcoming and excited. Everything is new - the main school building is being built as we speak.

"We even had to choose the time we would open and close the school and we have had to buy everything - from pencils to toilet brushes."

Mrs Higham who is married to Paul, 49, and has two children, 18-year-old Thomas and Jessica, 14, has moved to The Vine from Abbots Ripton Primary School, near Huntingdon, where she taught for eight years.

She said: "My aim is to make everyone part of a family as quickly as possible. It will be a creative school which is also practical and fun."

The school, which is the first Church of England-Methodist primary school in Cambridgeshire, is being funded by the Government and the churches themselves and it will be open to people of all faiths.

A county council spokesman said: "The expansion of Cambourne means the opening of the new school had to be brought forward by a year, and we are delighted the first phase will be opening on time.

"A lot of people have worked hard to achieve this and it is a tribute to everyone involved - particularly the contractors, the Diocese of Ely and the Methodist Church - that we are able to open the school as planned at the beginning of the new school year."

The Vine will be the second primary school in Cambourne. The first, Monkfield Park, is close to capacity.

As reported in the Cambridge Evening News