A NEW building is set to give Seven Fields Primary School the fresh start it's been waiting for.

In a £6m project, the existing mobile classrooms will be replaced with a state-of-the-art school.

And pupils should be in the new building by September 2008.

As the Advertiser reported earlier this week, the school has managed to pull itself out of special measures following a damning Ofsted report in 2004.

But in spite of the massive improvements headteacher Zita McCormick and her team have made, pupils are still being taught in mobile classrooms spread out across the school playground.

In 2004 the school's main building was declared structurally unsound after cracks appeared in several classrooms, which meant there was no longer a central school building.

But this is all set to change under a council drive to improve school facilities across the town.

Coun Garry Perkins (Con, Shaw & Nine Elms), Swindon Council's cabinet member for children's services, said: "I am delighted that we are able to build on the recent success of the school's Ofsted inspection by taking forward plans for a much-needed replacement school, which will make such a difference to the pupils and teachers at the school.

"The replacement school will include nursery and other community facilities to enable the school to continue its work with families in the area, so the new building will have a real impact on the local area.

"This is such an important project and I am hopeful that work on the replacement school will start in September 2006, once the adjacent Uplands Special School is re-located to the Northern Sector Learning Campus.

"It demonstrates our commitment to quality education provision across the borough and our determination to work with parents, governors and pupils to give them a solution that fits their requirements.

"The funding for the project has been earmarked and this is going to happen."

The school's senior management team has selected the design from a range of three options prepared by the council's architects following a detailed study of the site.

Assistant headteacher David Cole is thrilled the school is being given a new lease of life.

"This is almost a fresh start for us," he said.

"The mobile classrooms do restrict what we can teach, particularly with regard to art, technology and design because we don't have any sinks.

"The new building will allow us to teach a wider variety of subjects.

"The new building will give us back the school community feeling that we have lost since being in mobile classrooms."