STUDENTS and teachers have had their say over the design of their new school building.

Seventy-five staff and 60 students at Northbrook School, Taunton Road, Lee, took part in workshops to discuss ideas on how they want their new £14m school to look.

Northbrook School is one of nine secondary schools being rebuilt or refurbished in Lewisham as part of the Government's £2.2bn Building Schools for the Future Programme.

Lewisham Council has received £210m to carry out the scheme over the next 15 to 20 years.

The 500-pupil school is one of the first in the area to enter the design phase with representatives from Learning21, the company responsible for managing the building of the schools.

On May 16, teachers and governors worked with students and the Learning21 team to discuss subjects such as safety and security.

In the evening the school, which had leafleted more than 1,000 homes in the area, invited residents in to have their say.

Deputy headteacher Esther Holland said: "It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. When do you get to design a school from scratch?

"The school will be a fantastic building which will impact on three to five generations of people."

Ideas put forward will be fed back to the Learning21 design team to help form its plans.

These will be submitted to Lewisham Council this summer.

Cabinet member for children and young people Councillor Robert Massey said: "It's exciting seeing these ideas channelled to design a new school.

"The students have a complete right to have some say in the environment in which they learn."

Learning21 project development manager Graham Rapier said: "The workshops went really well.

"It was surprising the students and teachers had similar views."

In August, students and staff will move out of the Northbrook site into an old school building on Leahurst Road, Hither Green, for two years.

Northbrook will be demolished and building work for the new school will start early next year.

The new school is expected to open in September 2009.

Two schools, Catford and Sedgehill, are also at the design stage.

The designs are awaiting formal notification of planning approval from Lewisham Council.

Work is due to start in late summer 2007.