Children and staff celebrated a new era yesterday by holding their annual dance festival in a brand new hall.

Thorpe Hall Primary School in Walthamstow is currently a third of the way through a £5m development to enable it to take on 200 more pupils.

The Hale End Road school was unable to cook school dinners for their pupils until the hall, with an attached kitchen, opened this month.

Deputy Headteacher John Dodd said that it is an exciting time for parents, pupils and staff.

He said: “The hall is part of a huge new development. We are expanding in three phases.
“The first phase is the hall, the second is the new classrooms and the third is the school grounds and play grounds.

“It is a multi-purpose hall. We can now hold PE lessons in it and assemblies. It’s fantastic.”

Yesterday, children from all school years performed  traditional national dances from around the world, including Poland, Africa and Ireland.

Mr Dodd added: “This week has been ‘international week’ so the children have been learning about other countries.

“We have been teaching them about different currencies and we had a food festival on Tuesday.

“It was the first time that we were able to hold the dance festival in the hall.

“They absolutely loved it, they had a fantastic time.”