Plans to extend a boys’ school in Chalfont St Peter have been given the green light.

Thorpe House School, in Oval Way, is set to get a new multi-purpose hall, a two-storey ancillary building with two classrooms, three further classrooms on a new floor and a linkway between the hall and ancillary building.

The hall will be used for drama, school events and assemblies, GCSE and secondary transfer exams, and indoor sporting activities and lessons, as well as to the village community to use out-of-hours, while the ancillary building will house two new classrooms, changing facilities and an office.

The new first floor over the existing northern wing of the pre-prep school will have three new classrooms for 15-20 pupils each plus additional toilet and cloakroom facilities to enable the school to relocate boys within the prep section of the school from the main building mainly used for senior boys.

At a meeting of Chiltern District Council’s planning committee, headmaster Terence Ayres said the plans would provide the boys somewhere to have PE lessons, an indoor recreation space and somewhere for the school to host assemblies and other gatherings.

He said: “We haven’t for a long time had a space where we can provide the boys with a full indoor PE curriculum.

“We haven’t had a large indoor space where we can put on performances or musicals so that uncles, aunts, cousins and grandparents can come and watch.

“We haven’t had an indoor recreation space for the boys – when it’s raining and cold they’ve been confined to the classroom, which isn’t great for them.

“We haven’t had a large space where I can get all the boys together for an assembly.”

Councillor John Wertheim said he thought it was a “wonderful” development but had some concerns about parking in the area.

He said: “Chalfont St Peter suffers from parking problems as we already know but we’ve got another parking problem here because Oval Way has limited parking and you have to park off the road – you can’t park on the road for more than three hours.

“The parking adequacy generally is another concern.”

“But I do think this is a marvellous development and it provides what the school needs in terms of flexibility. It also provides a hall in which all the pupils can meet which is one of the most important things because it gives a feeling of ‘we’re all together in this’.”

One councillor questioned whether adding extra classes would mean increasing the number of pupils at the school, saying if this was the case, a transport assessment would need to be done.

Mr Ayres said the idea behind the extra classrooms was to move the Year 4 boys down to classrooms to the pre-prep school and “knock” smaller classes together so the school can accommodate the older pupils.

The majority of councillors voted to approve the plans.