Pupils return to Sea Mills Primary to find £5 million school buildings completed

Sea Mills Primary pupils returned to school yesterday to find the new £5 million buildings completed.

The construction of the new school, finished ahead of schedule, preserves and reuses as much as possible of the original Edwardian school, while creating bright, modern classrooms.

Head teacher, Kirsteen Craig, said: "We are all very excited to be moving into our new school buildings and can't wait to see children's reactions when they see their new classrooms. Staff have been working really hard getting everything ready for the start of term, and we are delighted to be up and running in a new high quality teaching environment, which preserves the best of the original buildings."

A team of 1,450 people have worked on the project, delivered by Bristol Local Education Partnership and its construction partner, Skanska.

Operations manager for Skanska's building central and regions division, Mike Carter, said: "This project is located in the heart of a housing estate, which presented challenges for the team, such as restricted delivery times and access to the site. We are proud to have built up a relationship with the community to minimise disruption during construction of the new school buildings."