SCHOOLCHILDREN have enjoyed a first-hand lesson in demolition after bulldozers started to pull down parts of Tudor Grange Academy in Worcester.

The construction work marks the start of a two-year £15 million revamp of the Bilford Road school.

The academy – formerly known as Elgar Technology College – will be transformed into a more modern design with a new entrance plaza, a revamped sports field with new football pitch, tennis courts, athletics track and exercise stations.

Yesterday, workers from Kier Moss began the first phase of the work by pulling down Russet, the drama and music block, and will move on to the administration block and the library next.

In the meantime, some classes and the students’ canteen have been relocated to other school buildings.

Work will be completed on the new buildings and students moved in, hopefully by November 2012, before the rest of the demolition takes place.

The project is expected to take about two years.

College leader Samantha Roach said the start of the work signified the beginning of a new future for the school.

She said: “They’ve started to pull one of the blocks down so it has caused quite a bit of a stir for the students to see it happen and quite a bit of emotion for staff who have been here for a while.

“Everyone came in and saw the diggers and said ‘oh, here we go’.

“It’s not just the brickwork, you can see they are thinking ‘wow, it’s going to happen and it’s going to be great’. They are really excited.”

She added: ““We will have much more ground. It will be really lovely.

“All the buildings will face towards the Malverns so we will have a good view too.”

The £15,458,137 funding for the project was secured via a Partnerships for Schools grant.

The funding includes £1,595,000 for ICT facilities.

The work is being overseen by the council’s children’s services’ directorate.