A NEW teaching block has been opened at an Oxford school to help cater for growing pupil numbers.

St Nicholas Primary School, in Raymund Road, Marston, is set to expand from 410 to 460 pupils in the next few years, taking in 60 rather than 45 pupils each year.

Pupils helped to design the £750,000 curved building, which provides classrooms for Year One and Year Two pupils.

St Nicholas’s growth will make it one of the city’s biggest primary schools.

Headteacher Rachel Crouch said: “We have two beautiful new curved classrooms and a brand new sensory room for our autistic children.

“They look amazing and let in huge amounts of light.

“The children designed it with the help of architects, and wanted it to be curved.

“When they saw what the architects and builders had done, the children absolutely loved it.

“Everyone at St Nicholas is over the moon.”

Pupil Aisha Campbell, 10, said: “The school council helped to decide how it was going to be made.

“We looked at what shape it was going to be and what it was going to look like.

“It’s blue, and really nice to look at it, and Year One and Year Two like it a lot.”

Oxford East MP Andrew Smith said: “It’s a wonderful extension and it was great to see such superb new facilities at a happy, popular and successful school.

“It has been very well designed, involving the children in the process, and is wonderfully airy and light, with great big windows looking out over the playing fields.

“It really is a first rate place for children to learn in.”

The school has already grown from 380 pupils to 410, and will continue to increase its intake to help cope with rising numbers of school-age children living in the city.

It also houses a specialist autism resource base, which works with pupils with autism, Asperger’s syndrome and related conditions from schools across the county.