"IT'S like having Christmas and your birthday at the same time," said Pershore High School's head teacher of the £3.4 million they have been awarded to revamp out of date classrooms.

Staff and students at Pershore High School have been celebrating the news they have been awarded millions of pounds from the Academies Capital Maintenance Fund for 2014 to 2016.

The money will be used over the coming academic years to demolish the existing modern languages block and replace it with a new art block and bus canopy and to create a new eight classroom block in place of the former art building.

Clive Corbett, head teacher, said: "This award offers a wonderful opportunity to further improve the school’s facilities, notably in the areas of art and design, humanities and modern languages.

"We get the first £2 million in 2014/15, we have to finish that by September 2015 because this includes repairs to roofs around the school as well. It's like having Christmas and your birthday at the same time."

The money has been allocated to the school after West Worcestershire MP Harriett Baldwin lobbied Education Minister David Laws to urge the department to back plans to improve the schools facilities, some of which were built in the 1970s and were due for upgrade more than two decades ago.

Mr Corbett added: "The new buildings will allow students to learn in even more exciting and interesting ways. I am hugely grateful to Harriett Baldwin MP for her unstinting support for our project."

And Mrs Baldwin was also delighted with the outcome. She said: "The new blocks will make a huge difference to the school and add impressive new buildings to the campus.

"I was more than willing to make the case for this funding and I wrote to both the Minster and the funding department's chief executive to press for some long-overdue investment in classrooms.

"Clive Corbett took me on a tour of some of the older buildings when I last visited the school and I was happy to offer my support when he put the funding bid together.

"Pershore High School pulls out all the stops to give their students the best possible education and investing in our children’s education is fundamental to the Government’s long term economic plan."