Broadfields Primary School pupils Layomi Oladipo and Audrey Linton, both ten, cheered on their teacher Alan King as he helped to knock down their old school as part of a £9.7 billion rebuilding project.

Mr King said: “Knocking down the school is great fun, and we’re looking forward to our new building. The development is massively important.

"We will have the whole school in one building and it sounds as though it is going to be absolutely marvellous.”

The new Broadfields Primary School is being built by Barnet Council’s First Class Schools programme at the site of the existing school, in Broadfields Avenue, Edgware.

The new school, together with a games court, car park, landscaping and footpaths, is due to be completed by Easter 2010.