Some of the county's most shabby schools were today celebrating cash injections to bring them back up to scratch, writes Mark Templeton.

Education Secretary David Blunkett announced Oxfordshire is to get nearly 6.8m to fund projects at crumbling schools.

The county council's education department will use the grant to target nine of the worst schools where pupils are taught in old or portable classrooms.

The money, which will be spent over the next year, will go to:

Bicester Community College, 764,624, to replace aluminium buildings

Chilton Primary School, 1,624,168, to replace existing school

Banbury School, 2,537, 394, to replace aluminium classrooms, design technology suite and dance studios

Gosford Hill, Kidlington, 591,304, to replace old concrete buildings

Wantage Junior School, 320,320, for new classrooms as part of a project to bring infant and junior schools on one site

Marlborough School, Woodstock, 364,840, to replace an old sixth form building

Wheatley Park School, 195,048, to replace temporary classrooms

Stephen Freeman School, Didcot, 198,856, to replace old, temporary buildings

Wychwood Primary, 199,416, to replace two temporary classrooms.

David Brown, the county's capital development education officer, said: "These are some of the worst schools in the county and they are all thrilled to be receiving this cash.

"I've been phoning up the schools to tell them and they've been running up and down the corridors cele- brating."

A governors' spokesman at Chilton School primary school, near Didcot, said: "The news is a great morale booster to staff and pupils who have been housed in buildings which are increasingly unfit."

Story date: Wednesday 12 April

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