THEY may still only be at primary school — but year six youngsters at SS Simon and Jude's CE are settling into their own "sixth form".

The school in Great Lever has made a huge investment in a new a set of classrooms and a common room for year six pupils, which they have dubbed "the sixth form", and a new nursery has been opened.

About £400,000 has been spent on the school, which has been partly paid for by a government grant, to allow the school to expand.

Principal Simon Bramwell said: "Year six pupils may not have thought that the school opening up a new nursery was that big a cause for celebration.

"However the logistics of the school site meant that the only place the school could expand was at the key stage two end of the school.

"This has resulted in the year six pupils gaining a new set of classrooms which they have dubbed 'the sixth form'.

"School reorganisation has taken place to free up two other classrooms for the new two-year-old and three-year-old nursery children to start in September in fantastic new facilities."

The primary school, which is marked as good with outstanding features by Ofsted, is a national support school, helping to raise standards in other schools as well as running schools in Knowsley and Manchester as an academy trust.

Mr Bramwell added: "The school paid for three quarters of the overall cost, with monies accrued over the last three years.

"All the additional work done by the staff in supporting other schools has generated this development fund.

"We were the only school in the area without a nursery, and the area is a priority zone within the local authority for two-year-old provision.

"The local authority early years team have been really helpful in moving the project along.

"However the beneficiaries right now are the year six pupils, who ended up with two new fabulous rooms and a 'common room' area, all equipped with the latest touch-screen displays and state of the art wireless IT facilities.

"The children love the lime-green and tangerine décor. It isn't often a child refers to his class as 'really cool' and a 'fun place to learn'."

Teacher Kathryn Southern said: "This is a fabulous space to teach in and represents a huge improvement for the pupils — they have responded well to the change."