CHILDREN, staff and parents at Cradley CE Primary School are spending every spare minute packing in preparation for the move to a new £1.5 million building.

The final day in the old school will be on Wednesday (October 20), before the move to the new site near the Buryfields estate.

Headteacher Rev Dawn Hyett said everyone was pitching in with the packing, with children filling boxes during their lunch break, staff working extra hours and members of the community using trailers to transport things.

"Everybody is really putting such a lot of effort in," she said.

The new building has a hall twice the size of the current one, five large classrooms with wet play areas, a fenced-off outdoor play area, staff rooms, storage, a medical room and large kitchen.

Mrs Hyett said she was delighted the building had been finished so quickly.

"When I started the job in January I kept going past and seeing just the foundations and thinking 'This is never going to be ready,'" she said. "It seemed to come out of the ground virtually overnight."

The school has raised £85,000 of £150,000 needed to fund the new building, with the Government providing the rest. All the furniture from the old school is being sold to raise funds, including 20 lift-top desks, still used by Class 5, which will be auctioned in the school hall on Monday (October 18), at 6pm.

The sale of the old building will also help pay for the new school. It is owned by the education authority, Hereford Diocese and the governors, who need to be in agreement before the sale can go ahead.

On the final day in the old building, Hugh Wagstaffe, chairman of governors, will ring the bell for the last time. He paid for the privilege at a fundraising auction. The school's 108 pupils will draw their memories of the building on the playground in chalk and will get an extra two days half-term holiday while the move takes place.