THERE was a gentle hum from children grinning ‘cheese’ as cameras snapped them at the opening of their new school building.

Yarrells Preparatory School pupils gathered at the purpose-built building, Greenwood House, with proud parents, governors, teachers and supporters leading tours around their new classrooms.

Head master Andrew Roberts-Wray told the onlookers: “This building is for the kids by the kids so we thought it was only appropriate that the kids be involved with the opening.

"It is amazing how one building can transform a whole school. It has lifted our spirits and moved us forward and the joy I see every day is fantastic.”

Speaking to the Daily Echo, he said: “It has provided us with six class rooms, a new hall and one amazing wooded play area in the woods.”

Works started last January when diggers turned up. The eco-friendly building had to have specialist piles for the foundations to avoid the roots of the protected trees.

Older classrooms can now be developed, such as the nursery which staff have earmarked for a new creative arts centre.

Blessing the school, Rev Canon Jean de Garis, said: “We see what odd angles there are to the buildings, just like our lives. We pray that this will be a building of academic excellence and creativity. And we pray it will be a place of safety. May it be used well as a building to all who come here.”

Adam Covell, the building’s architect and chair of school governors, said he and the builders faced immense difficulties with the site. As well as having to plan a building around protected trees, access was often made difficult given the location inside the woods. Work vehicles would also have to navigate the twice-daily surge of cars on the school run.

But they managed to pull together and deliver a building that had proven a big hit with the children, he said.

“A week before term started all the staff came in and worked until midnight to make sure it was finished,” he said. “It was a big risk because if it hadn’t had been done it would have been a nightmare.”

The pre-fabricated building is unique, he said, in that it has an inverted roof and lots of windows to capture as much light as possible.