PUPILS at Wellesley Park Primary School in Wellington are set to benefit from a grant of £300,000 from the Department for Education to improve the building.

The money comes on top of a £500,000 grant last year to improve the school’s roof, which has enhanced the building’s fuel efficiency.

The school has also been given an extra £24,000 for improvements in return for hosting children from the new Isambard Kingdom Brunel Primary School on Longforth Farm for a few weeks until the new building is completed.

Wellesley Park headteacher Carly Wilkins said: “I am so pleased that yet again Wellesley Park has been successful in winning grants from the Government for improving the school.

“This means that the money that was allocated from the school budget for this can be spent on improving the classroom environment even further for our children.”

The Castle Partnership Trust chief executive Sarah Watston said: “I am so pleased to see that our schools in Wellington are being recognised by the Government in this way. So far we have been successful in bidding for more than £1.5 million for Wellesley Park in the two years since joining the trust and Court Fields has had more than £2.5 million spent on it over seven projects.

“This is one of the great benefits of being in a trust, that we can access funds not available to other schools. So far, the total grant funding for capital projects coming into the trust has been nearly £9 million. The local authority would never have been able to invest this sort of money in our schools.”