The windows leak, rain pours through the roof, crammed corridors are wind tunnels and sixth form students freeze in winter and bake in summer in their study area. Castle Rushen High School is in dire need of a new building.

The long-awaited new-build was approved by Tynwald in February and since then work has been happening behind the scenes to pull the project together with research trips to see award winning schools in England and hours spent online trawling ideas.

’You need to get is right,’ said Education Minister Graham Cregeen.

’The estimated cost is at least £30m. That is a considerable amount of money. Given a fair wind, the plan is for completion in 2022-23.’

He added: ’Castle Rushen is drafty, there are narrow corridors, windows open onto footpaths.

’It has been neglected because they were promised a new school. Our children deserve a new school.

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’It makes them feel valued and where this has happened elsewhere behaviour has improved. It is vitally important, we are pushing it forward.

’I think it’s a very exciting time.’

The current thinking is the new school will be built on the existing playing field.

Meanwhile, sports will be played on land behind the Witch’s Mill.

Once pupils move into the new building, the old site will be used as car parking or as open space. The old car park area will be turned into an astro turf pitch.

Facilities used by the community - such as the sports hall - will be sited near the road.

Within the school itself there are plans for a lecture theatre which can also be a cinema and an area for the arts .

There will also be an area to study vocational qualifications, opening up the opportunities for students.

Classroom walls might be moveable or transparent for flexibility and vigilance.

’We want to make it environmentally-friendly, use ground source heat, photo voltaic cell,’ he said.

’We want to make it so when people are flying over and look down, they look at something special.’

It is expensive, but they will argue in the business case in addition to environmental benefits, long term savings on energy make it worth the expense.

All this comes when a new primary school might be built to accommodate children living in the 800-1,000 new houses being and to be built in the south and outlined in the Southern Area Plan.

Its siting is unknown, but it could be in the Ballsalla or Castletown area.

Mr Cregeen said: ’We might need a new primary school, there are new houses being built.

’It’s chicken and egg, which comes first? And how do we fund it? Should there be an infrastructure levy on developers who build large estates, so large they impact the community and infrastructure?

’Some of the levy goes to the local community.

’These sorts of things need to come into play.

’Rushen and Scoill Phurt le Moirrey are the only ones with spaces.

’That’s why having a catchment area is important. It’s a fine balancing act.’

Head teacher Keith Winstanley said a ’newschool’ briefing process has begun.

The brief is for a school with ’active learning at its centre, is flexible, connected, safe and aligned to the island’s priorities .. for our learners to be inspired by their environment and for the building to be energy efficient and good value for money’.