A DARWEN secondary school is set to be revolutionised by a £20million cash injection – creating a second superschool for the town.

A whole new section of Darwen Vale High School will be built at its present site after dated extensions are demolished, with the original historic front of the current 1938 building preserved and fully modernised.

Work is scheduled to start in September next year and the school’s 1,200 pupils will all move to the former Moorland High School buildings in Holden Fold while it is under way.

The Moorland school buildings are currently being used by Darwen Aldridge Community Academy, while its new £48 million school is completed in Redearth Road.

Plans are still at an early stage and no specific details about number of classrooms have been released, but the rebuilt school will include ‘super labs’ for science featuring the the latest equipment for investigations.

It will also include ‘flexible’ classrooms for use in projects that examine the relationship between different disciplines, such as the way maths links with science and technology.

And there will also be a special transition area for new pupils in their first year to help them adjust to a ‘big school’, but with the feel of a ‘small school’.

The building work will be carried out as part of the £200m Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme taking place across Blackburn and Darwen. This has been funded by money from central government.

Darwen Vale head teacher Lynn Dunning said: “The possibilities in education and positive outcomes for pupils through the BSF programme are vast and we are entering an incredibly exciting time for the school.

“It will have a huge and long-lasting impact on every pupil’s education and experience of Darwen Vale High School, not only through learning but through the design of the buildings and the facilities available to them.

“We are proud of our school but this will provide an even more stimulating, ground-breaking, happy and secure educational environment which will obtain the best for, and from, each pupil.”

The specialist engineering college will continue under its original name on the temporary site and the whole school will transfer back to the original site in Blackburn Road in September 2012.

Earcroft councillor Trevor Maxfield said the announcement was very exciting.

He said: “It’s good news and in years to come we should have some brilliant educational establishments.

“The amount of money being pumped into education across the borough is phenomenal.”

Jenny Goldthorpe of Dove Lane, Darwen, has children in year 7 and 9 and another due to start at high school in 2010.

She said: “It’s fantastic news. It’s really exciting to be involved with the school at this time and to know that my children will benefit from all the bang-up-to-date facilities.

“They are going to get so much more out of school with this.”

Other BSF schemes in the area include the building of the new East Blackburn Community College on a former golf range in Haslingden Road that will combine Crosshill Special School and Blakewater College.

In the Burnley and Pendle areas, investment under BSF is more established.

The first wave of the programme saw Shuttleworth College open in Padiham, Burnley Campus established to cater for sixth formers and Pendle Vale College and Pendle Community High sharing a site in Nelson.