Work has started to provide Bradley Stoke Community School with a sixth form centre that will be ready when its first students have completed their GCSEs.

A turf-cutting ceremony was held at the school as contractors moved on to the site to begin the £4.6 million project.

The new facilities will provide not only a post-16 centre but also a dance studio and improved changing rooms, all to be ready for the autumn of next year.

That will be when the first pupils who joined the school at the age of 11 when it opened in 2005 will be ready to start sixth form life.

If the project had not gone ahead, those teenagers would have had to move to another school.

The new building is being funded by a Learning and Skills Council grant and built by Thomas Vale Construction.

Head teacher Dave Baker said: "The school has students in all years 7-11 for the first time this September so it is both timely and appropriate that the Post-16 Centre is being built in readiness for our first students who will need it in September 2010."

The project will allow an extra 180 pupils to be accommodated at the school, which was originally designed to cater for 900 students.

Sheila Cook, South Gloucestershire Council's executive member for children and young people, said: "By September 2010 local pupils will have a wonderful new facility in which to continue their educational journey."

Bradley Stoke councillors said the scheme was a milestone that gave local youngsters the chance to continue at their school after 16 – something that pupils in all the district's other secondary schools already had.