Pupil Riley Rowland helped to top out the £11m new building for Wood Farm Primary School and Slade Nursery School in Oxford.

Watched by his classmates, the seven year-old donned a hard hat and joined Wood Farm headteacher David Lewin and nursery head Sue Vermes to place the final brick.

The building, in Titup Hall Drive, is now weather-tight and will be ready for pupils to use from next April.

Members of Oxfordshire County Council and staff from Abingdon construction firm Leadbitter, which is building the school, joined staff and pupils at yesterday’s ceremony.

Mr Lewin said: “To see the buildings going up is very exciting, particularly for the children.

“A number of them got to go on to the site and stand in the classrooms which they will soon be using, and they certainly enjoyed that.”