HAMOND'S High School in Swaffham is ready to 'rise like a phoenix from the ashes' following a multi-million pound upgrade.

HAMOND'S High School in Swaffham is ready to 'rise like a phoenix from the ashes' following a multi-million pound upgrade.

For the past three years builders have been on-site rejuvenating classrooms and transforming corridors - all while the students carried on learning around them.

Now the building work is finally finished and the school has an impressive new entrance, hi-tech classrooms and state-of-art-teaching facilities.

To complement the �10m rebuild pupils have also been given a new school uniform and the school's name has been changed slightly to Swaffham Hamond's High School.

With the transformation complete the school was officially relaunched last Tuesday evening.

Welcoming local dignitaries, school governors and teachers from other school's to the event interim head teacher Stuart Bailey said the school was making a fresh start.

'This is a little bit like a phoenix rising from the ashes,' he said.

'It feels like a new opportunity with a new build, a new focus and a new attitude.'

Mr Bailey said the school's values were now respect, learning and pride the students had been notably more focused since the rebuild had finished and the new uniform has been introduced.

He said the school's classrooms had been upgraded and the sixth form, which was previously in the town centre, had been brought back onto the site which was 'only proper'.

Senior prefect Kain Eastham told the audience that the new classrooms had made sitting in lessons 'interesting and interactive'.

He said: 'The school is now more peaceful and students have a higher sense of pride. It is a great learning environment for all.'

Fellow prefect Samantha Colman added that new tutor groups, which include youngsters from all year groups, along with the new uniform, had made the school 'feel more like a community'.

Unveiling a plaque to mark the occasion Baroness Shephard, who was secretary of state for education between 1994 and 1997, said: 'The education network is the fundamental thing in a healthy community and healthy society.

'This evening we have been told by the head that the community can look to the students as people for whom the values of respect, learning and pride are of the upmost importance.

'If that is the case then we cannot fail to have a healthy community.'

In April, the school's head Yvonne Srodzinski was suspended pending an investigation into her management. The matter has not yet been resolved.