Hero tradesmen have been praised by a family in Hazlemere after they built a nine-year-old boy with special needs his own classroom at home in a DIY SOS-style project.

The tradesmen rallied around Ajay McDaniel and his family after a conversation in a café that his mum Emma Hopkins had led to an “army” of volunteers giving up their time to build Ajay the classroom of his dreams in the family’s garden.

Ms Hopkins said: “There is not a school locally which is able to meet his needs.

“Our son has complex needs and has been out of education for a year as his needs were not being met and there were cuts to his support which meant he could not access his education.

“There is not a school in Bucks who is able to meet all his needs so we have had to educate him at home.”

But with little space to do this at home, Ms Hopkins found her son was not engaging with his learning and was finding it difficult to disassociate the space he was learning in from his home.

She started talking to Antoinette Harris, who runs The Avenue Café at Hazlemere Youth Centre, who then spoke to her partner, who runs a building firm in High Wycombe.

She said: “She spoke to him and other people who came into the café and they said they would donate their time to do it all from start to finish.

“It’s really a whole community effort. Ajay was just completely overwhelmed when he saw the finished room.

“He couldn’t quite get his head around the fact that he had a classroom in his garden but he absolutely loved it.”

Everyone from plasterers and decorators to flooring specialists and electricians gave up their time to build Ajay the classroom.

Ms Hopkins added: “It will allow him to engage with his learning. It’s made it so much more accessible and he is so much happier.

“It’s not just a space to do his work, it made learning accessible for him.

“We are really fortunate that we have had all this help but there are a massive cohort of kids that are in this situation.

“A massive thank you to all the tradesmen – they don’t realise the magnitude of what they have done for Ajay.

“It’s a complete game-changer for Ajay and his long-term prospects.”