CRESSEX Community School has been promised a whopping £31million to re-build its crumbling premises, and work has already started to decide what it will look like.

Staff and governors at the school in Holmers Lane, High Wycombe, battled for five years to secure funding to do up the run-down buildings.

At a meeting in September last year parents and pupils were told Cressex would be getting £20million to do the work, but this figure has now risen by more than 50 per cent.

After calculating how much it would cost to completely redo the school, Buckinghamshire County Council applied for a bigger grant, which it successfully got.

The money has come from the Government's Building Schools for the Future scheme and Cressex has been picked as the only school in the county to get the money. Other schools on the list across the country will not be getting their grants until 2013.

All 18 of Cressex's shabby buildings will be replaced and work is hoped to start this summer with the new state-of-the-art school opening by 2009.

Richard Marshall, Cressex head teacher, said: "This is tremendous news for Cressex pupils and their families.

"They deserve the highest quality education and we are looking forward to building on our recent Ofsted success.

"It's going to be absolutely stunning when they build it.

"With 31 rather than £20million, it's going to be better than it was the first time round.

"The children are really excited.

"They have been drawing their own versions of the type of school they'd want.

"It fits in very nicely with the positive Ofsted we've just had."

In January, the school was visited by Ofsted inspectors who were impressed with pupils respect for one another and the way they were supported during their time at Cressex.

Mr Marshall added that under the Building Schools for the Future scheme, only certain materials can be used when constructing the new school to make sure it is environmentally friendly.

Staff, governors, county councillors and the Cressex community have already held a meeting to discuss ideas about what the new school will look like and another is planned tomorrow.

A series of workshops are also in the pipeline to decide what kind of landscaping and design the new school will include.

It is hoped when Cressex is finished it will become a model for future school building in the county.