St Nicholas School in Chippenham is to get a dedicated special needs sports area thanks to a £30,000 boost from the National Lottery.

The sports facility, which will be in the playground of the Malmesbury Road school, will also be accessible to the community outside school hours.

Bruce Douglas, headteacher at St Nicholas, said: “This is a wonderful and much-needed opportunity to create a really fantastic sport facility for our children.

“As well as making play times more exciting, staff will be able to take a whole new approach to sports teaching. I can’t thank our bid team and Sport England enough and cannot wait to see the kids’ faces when they see it.”

St Nicholas School caters for pupils from across Wiltshire, aged four to 19, with severe or profound learning difficulties.

The new facility is being funded with £29,950 from Sport England’s £18m Primary School Facilities Fund, designed to support schools in the greatest need of sports improvements.