£500,000 investment for Cheselbourne Village School

Cheselbourne Village School is a rural school with around 50 pupils, mostly from the surrounding villages of Cheselbourne, Ansty, Melcombe Bingham and Hilton.

Over the summer, the school has undergone huge changes which has seen several new buildings lifted into the grounds.

A crane dropping one of the new buildings into the school (Image: Chris Perry)

Previously, the school was using portable buildings for early years pupils, which were not equipped with toilet facilities.

Pupils were still able to use facilities in the main school building, but concerns had been raised about the suitability of the buildings.

Now the new permanent buildings will be used to accommodate up to 20 early years pupils in the school.

Headteacher Chris Perry said the investment from Dorset Council shows the council's "support" for rural schools.

Mr Perry said: "Around a third of our school has been developed and changed over the summer.

Cheselbourne Village School headteacher Chris Perry (Image: Tom Lawrence)

"As time goes on, buildings change and our previous building was a portable building which needed maintenance over the years.

"Over time, that was becoming a real issue for the school with our numbers increasing every year.

"We didn't have the right facilities for the children, the early years pupils were having to go over to the main school building to use the toilets.

"We needed the right facilities and the right floor space for them.

"We are still a local authority school, Dorset Council funded the new buildings.

"The cost was approximately half a million pounds.

A new building being dropped into the school by crane (Image: Chris Perry)

"It shows the support from Dorset Council for smaller rural schools like us."

The school reopened after summer holidays on Thursday, September 5, and the children were able to move into their new facilities

Mr Perry added: "It enables us to have around 20 pupils in early years including our pre-school.

An inside look at sa part of the new building (Image: Chris Perry)

"It also means we have a separate teaching space which can be used as a quiet space for various interventions.

"This could be for individual support or group work for some pupils.

"It can be tricky teaching mixed age groups that we have at the school.

"For example, we have Years 1 and 2 combined and there are a lot of times they can be together, but sometimes the subject matter means they should be separate and these changes mean we can facilitate that."