PLANS have been submitted for a sixth form at Warriner School, Bloxham, after education chiefs backed post-16 lessons there.

The school has put in plans with Cherwell District Council (CDC) for a single-storey building with four classrooms and common room.

The sixth form was last month given permission by Oxfordshire County Council after years of campaigning.

If approved by CDC, the work would start in September and be finished by Easter for the first sixth-formers to start in September 2013.

The £500,000 building will be funded by cash given by developers over the years as part of deals to win planning permission.

Warriner headteacher Dr Annabel Kay said: “We are over the moon, the school has been trying to get a sixth form since it opened 40 years ago.

“It will be designed so we can expand it should more money become available. We are not short of space.”

The school previously planned to put students in a modular building between classrooms. But the new plan would be for a building on disused tennis courts off Banbury Road. It would take 195 students by 2016.

The school argued a sixth form would stop students travelling long distances and guarantee continuity of education.

But Banbury School and Chipping Norton School warned it could “fragment” education in north Oxfordshire.