A £7.5m scheme to rebuild a Southampton primary school has been given the green light by council bosses.

Cabinet chiefs have agreed to fund the project to overhaul Newlands Primary in Millbrook in a bid to improve results and house an expected explosion in pupil numbers.

It is also hoped modern teaching and computing facilities will allow the school to continue to raise standards, less than a year after it successfully came out of special measures.

The Ullswater Road school is nearly at capacity, and with the new family housing development on the current Ordnance Survey site due to swell numbers in the catchment area further, the council has stepped in to increase the size of the school.

It says the rebuild is vital for supporting the school, which was taken out of special measures last August, a year after Ofsted inspectors said it was failing.

Although new head teacher Lou Stapleton has overseen improvements, Ofsted said there is still much work needed.

Newlands was one of ten Southampton schools which last year failed to achieve the Government’s target of 55 per cent of pupils reaching the expected level in maths and English in Key Stage 2 tests.

“It’s a school that’s in desperate need of repair,” said city education chief, Councillor Paul Holmes.

“The buildings are 50 or 60 years old and not in a good state of repair. It’s too small at the moment and is costing more to maintain than it should.”

Newlands will start taking two classes from this September, and its total capacity will be 420 children, up from the 327 currently on roll.

Early years nursery provisions will be included on the site, and the neighbouring Pickles Coppice NHS and Sure Start premises will also be incorporated into the new buildings.

Classes will continue in the existing school while the new building is constructed elsewhere on the site.

The old structure will then be torn down, with the land converted into playing fields.