Television design guru Kevin McCloud was impressed by the £30 million buildings of new Bristol school Brislington Enterprise College.

The Grand Designs presenter said the 1,755-place comprehensive, which opened in September, was an extraordinary building.

"You don't need a glossy marble ceiling or big shiny glass walls everywhere to exemplify greatness in architecture. Great buildings are great because they really work," he told guests at yesterday's launch ceremony.

Mr McCloud officially opened the college along with Tim Byles, chief executive of the Government agency Partnerships for Schools.

Visitors were treated to a performance by pupil band Go Dutch, presentations by Year 7 and 8 pupils and a dance by students of Florence Brown special school.

Heather Tomlinson, the city council's strategic director of children, young people and skills, said the new school showed Bristol's enormous ambition for its youngsters.

The college's principal, John Matthews, thanked everyone who had been involved in the four-year journey of the school's development.

Brislington Enterprise College has been designed to be like "schools within a school".

In place of one large school is a series of "mini-schools", each with its own director and staff.

Students spend about 60 per cent of their time in these learning communities and the remainder in shared areas for subjects such as dance, PE and art.

The college has two learning communities for Years 7 and 8, three for Years 9, 10 and 11, one for post-16 students and one for physically-impaired students, as well as a centre for autistic students.

It developed its new model based on the principle of human scale education as applied particularly in schools in Boston, America. Senior staff visited Boston to see how the system works.

The college is one of four secondary schools in the pathfinder phase of the Government's £45 billion Building Schools for the Future programme.

They are being built by the Bristol Local Education Partnership, which comprises the city council, Partnerships for Schools and construction firm Skanska, which is responsible for design, construction and operation.

Mr Byles praised Bristol for leading the way nationally in the Building Schools for the Future programme.