St Michael's Primary School was identified as a school that could be increased in size with the purchase of an adjacent plot to help meet a shortfall in school places. The existing school was already on a very constrained town centre site and in a Conservation Area surrounded by trees, some with preservation orders. A feasibility was carried out to show how the school could be increased from 2 form of entry to 3 and include a small children's centre. The school was to remain on site during construction and as there was no room for temporary classrooms the work was carried out in a number of phases. To achieve planning approval a number of significant trees had to be retained as well as a Victorian Villa which had to be incorporated into the scheme to provide additional space. The project consists of a new two storey classroom block to link the existing school buildings with the retained Villa negotiating a tree and a level difference. The Villa was converted to accommodate the Children's Centre on the Ground Floor and Staff facilities with group rooms above. Other additional classrooms were built over existing flat roofed classrooms. The Hall was extended as well as some undersized classrooms. The existing buildings were a mixture of styles and materials so in the design there has been an attempt to produce an aesthetic that unifies the school whilst being contemporary in design and use of materials. There is extensive use of Zinc and copper coloured cladding which has reference to the roofing material of an existing classroom block which manages to unify visually the school whilst not detracting from the Victorian Villa, adjacent trees and surrounding buildings. Environmental principles based on our previous school projects using natural ventilation through vertical chimneys incorporated into the structure and heavy concrete frame to control large temperature swings. The building achieves BREEAM very good.