A TYLDESLEY school is going upwardly mobile -- to the tune of half a million pounds.

Pupils at Garrett Hall Primary were eager to resume lessons yesterday after the half-term break at Garrett Hall Primary where impressive new classroom units have been installed.

For several weeks the youngsters have been taught in makeshift accommodation hurriedly pressed in to use after outdated mobile classrooms were condemned as unfit for use.

Workmen this week were putting the finishing touches to six large new replacement mobile units to house 180 of the school's 400-plus pupils as stage one of an impressive remodelling plan for the primary school gets under way.

This week school governors were discussing architectural specifications which will add a new dimension to the pre-war building which started life as Tyldesley's senior boys' school which opened in 1935.

"It's a very exciting time," said proud Garrett Hall head David Knight who has been at the school for 12 years and explained how summer is the planned start date for the £m new build scheme.

"Completion is due at Easter 2002 for the extension work which will include a new second hall which will serve as a dining room and accommodate PE, dance and drama. That will support the existing main hall and the new building will include brand new nursery units catering for 60 three to four year-olds. The existing nursery will move to new classrooms."

Indicating the immediate remodelling work was stage one in an envisaged larger overall scheme Mr Knight, emphasising he had no plans to retire for several years yet, added: "I would like to see the school in its finalised form and to be able to hand over to my successor a better school physically and academically than I inherited."

Immediate plans are to combine with Groundwork to embark on a planting programme and remedial work to make good some of the upheaval caused by contractors who dismantled and replaced the mobile classrooms. Mr Knight is understandably proud of Garrett Hall which stands on one of the borough's most impressive primary sites. "Garrett Hall is a wonderful place -- a fine, strong brick building and a wonderful setting. It should be a listed building. There is a feeling of solidness about the place and we still get a lot of former pupils from its secondary school days asking if they can come and have a look round. Some of our present-day parents were pupils here as were two of the governors. In recent weeks when the old mobile units were taken out of use I was very grateful for the offers of help received from neighbouring schools. Along with the governors I would like to thank our staff for all their hard work during a difficult time."