The Department of Education has taken on board the government's commitment to reducing carbon emissions in its plans for the £7.5 million replacement for the 100-year-old Albert Road Junior School.

Scoill Ree Gorree will be heated using ground source pumps, drawing heat from pipes under the new football pitch, taking advantage of the fact that the temperature 1.2 metres below the ground is constant at around 11C throughout the year.

Heat pumps capable of providing 4kW of heat from 1kW of electricity then bring this heat to a higher temperature, which will feed under-floor heating in the classrooms.

This should provide heating by electricity for less than the price of gas and produce approximately 30 per cent less CO2 than a gas system.

The other significant factor is that it should cost in the order of 25 per cent less to heat the school, 'freeing up' funding available for other resources.

The building will be the first in the Island to be assessed by BREEAM – the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method – which sets standards for best practice in sustainable development.

It is a condition of capital funding in the UK that new build and large refurbishment projects achieve a 'very good' rating under BREEAM.

The contractors and the design team carrying out work at Scoill Ree Gorree are targeting an 'excellent' rating, the highest environmental performance award available.

Graeme Terris, a director of Foreman Roberts, the building services engineers involved in the project, explained: 'Effectively, the team needed to re-think things from scratch, though a lot of the processes had been previously used in the adjacent Auldyn School, which would have received a "very good" rating had it been assessed by BREEAM.

Work on Scoill Ree Gorree will be completed later this spring. The school's staff and 257 pupils will begin lessons in the new building from the start of the new term in September.

The building will have the capacity for 380 pupils.