PLANS have been announced for a new music department at a Ribble Valley school.

St Augustine’s RC High School in Billington has applied to Lancashire County Council to extend the humanities block to create a new classroom, an office and two practice rooms.

The school has said that the two current music classrooms are located in different parts of the main building and often cause noise disruption to other lessons.

In a document to the council, the school also said that the classrooms are too small for the instruments and the number of pupils in each music class.

The maths classroom currently in the humanities block would be relocated as part of the proposal.

Ribble Valley Borough Council has been asked to provide its opinion of the application before a formal decision is made.

Headteacher Michael Wright said: “Music is a central aspect of our curriculum and is very important to staff and students here.

“One of the classrooms that we have at the moment is next to where we hold exams so for a couple of weeks in December and for about five or six in May and June that room can’t be used a lot.

“The two existing rooms are near other classrooms and that means that the student’s can’t have the music blasting out as much as they want because it disrupts other lessons.

“But these new rooms will be able to play music to their hearts content which is great.

“The project will go out to tender and we are hoping for a quick decision from the council.”

Simon Jones, from and Lancashire branch of the NUT, said: “Music is very important along with creative subjects including art and PE.

“They are important as part of a balanced and broad curriculum.

“Over the last decade we have seen these really important subjects squeezed down and there has been an obsessive driver with literacy and numeracy which are easier to test.

“Anything schools are doing to restore the status of creative subjects would be welcomed by the union.”