STUDENTS at a St Albans college have come to the aid of their younger counterparts by revamping a primary school’s library desperately in need of repair.

Oaklands College pupils are giving the library at Park Street Primary School, Branch Road, a much-needed facelift while honing their construction skills at the same time.

Head teacher of Park Street Tina Facer explained that the school had wanted to improve its neglected library but had been hampered by a lack of funding.

Tutors from the college visited the school and offered to help with the project, which provides its students with experience in a working environment, while supporting other young people.

Tina said that the job included plastering, painting and decorating.

She said: “It’s brilliant because it will be finished within the next few weeks. We would have found it very hard to do this ourselves, and it is beneficial to both sides.

“And the work is to a high standard as it is being fully supervised. The library was in a poor state of repair.”

Tina said that older primary students had been involved in drawing up designs showing what they wanted the library to look like.

This included having a puppet theatre, so they could put on shows for younger pupils.

She added: “We hope that once it is finished, it will help develop an even greater love of books.”

Oaklands’ director of student experience Sean Scully said: “We regularly seek opportunities for our students to participate in construction projects under the full supervision of their tutors.

“Construction crafts such as brickwork, plastering, painting and decorating, plumbing and electrical are hugely competitive markets and to give our students the competitive edge when seeking employment, real live experience of working on a project is invaluable.”

Sean said that the college had been seeking such projects over the past two years, which would also benefit the local community.

He explained: “In 2010 we finished a job for a family that were the victim of a rogue trader and from this publicity we began getting requests from community centres and schools in need of some work but without the funds to complete this themselves.”

Sean said the Park Street school project was completed under the full supervision of students’ tutors, who acted as site managers.

The college funded the cost of materials and transportation for its pupils.