North Yorkshire's only grant-maintained school was celebrating today after the official opening of its new £80,000 first-floor community room.

Nun Monkton Primary School, near York, is due to return to local authority control in September when the system of grant maintained schools comes to an end under the Labour Government.

Head teacher Linda Ashby said refurbishment work at the school had been possible partly because it had been able to approach private investors for help.

But she said she was confident about the future of the school, which was saved from the axe when it opted out of local authority control in 1994.

The recent refurbishment work involved converting empty attic space into a first-floor room to be used as a computer room, library and meeting place for community groups.

The village does not have a hall or a community centre so the parish council, evening classes and other groups all meet in the school.

Mrs Ashby said the York-based Funding Agency for Schools, which stopped looking after the budgets for grant-maintained schools in April, had matched funds raised by the school.

Funding had also come from an environmental company Enventure Ltd, which gives out grants through the Government's Landfill Tax Credit System.

She said: "It's quite sad that the independence that was enjoyed by grant maintained schools, and the upbeat feel that that gave teachers in feeling there was quite a lot of decision-making they could bring to bear on schools, has come to a conclusion.

"But we have every reason to think we will move forward into a new era successfully. We're not going back. I think other schools might see more change than we do."

She said Nun Monkton, like other grant-maintained schools, would become one of the new "foundation" schools which will come into being in September.

Most local authority controlled schools will become "community" schools and church schools will become "voluntary" schools for the initial period of the new system.

The new extension at Nun Monkton, known as the "upper deck resource room" has already been used for church services and evening classes and the new computers are linked up to the Internet.

Mrs Ashby said: "There has been support for this project right the way through the village - people are already making bookings for the room."

The bulk of the building work was completed during last year's summer holiday, decorating took place during the next few months and the installation of all the computer equipment preceded the official opening this week.

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