PRIMARY school pupils and teachers have been given the ultimate end-of-term treat, after winning a summer break makeover.

St Christopher’s C of E Primary School, in Cowley, Oxford, won the third Oxford Mail Leadbitter School Build competition, after amassing 17,434 vouchers from editions of the newspaper over the past three weeks.

The total equates to more than 64 vouchers per pupil.

The mammoth effort from pupils, parents, staff and supporters means Abingdon-based construction firm Leadbitter Group will carry out £7,500 of building work over the next few months to create the school’s dream outdoor classroom, complete with a storytelling trail, enchanted wood, fairy bridge, puppet theatre, pirate ship, giant maths puzzles and sundial.

The victory caps an incredible year for the formerly-failing Temple Road school, which came out of special measures, which had been imposed by Ofsted in 2009, after inspectors found achievement was inadequate.

Headteacher Alison Holden screamed with delight when the news was broken to her by the Oxford Mail yesterday.

She said: “We are all so thrilled. We have come out of special measures, our Year Six results are now in line with national expectations, and to win this is the icing on the cake.

“The learning is great inside the classroom, and this means we can do the same outside as well.”

The school had launched a mass drive to collect the Oxford Mail vouchers across Cowley.

Newsagents, care homes, churches, and community centres had all been asked to collect vouchers, and parents put flyers through hundreds of doors asking people to send them in.

Mrs Holden said: “We had vouchers sent through the post, collections in shops, and I even had them stuffed through my letterbox at home. Leadbitter Group’s head of special projects Ian Batchelor said: “This project stood out. The level of detail and application was exactly what we were looking for, and the number of tokens they have collected is amazing.”

St John Fisher Catholic Primary School just missed out, collecting 56.3 vouchers per pupil.