Education Minister Estelle Morris is due to visit Croydon's historic Stanley Technical High School today (Wednesday) to see the school for herself since its bid for city academy status.
The itinerary for Ms Morris includes a visit to Fortune House, the South Norwood Hill school's new annex, which houses classrooms and a resource centre due to open this May.
The school's bid for city academy status was submitted to the Department of Education and Skills last March.
If successful, the four-and-a-half form entry boys' school will become a seven-form entry, mixed school with a sixth form.
Stanley Tech wants to encourage partners to invest between £10 million and £15 million to create a school and community establishment, and will persuade business partners to participate in pupils' mentoring, curriculum and work experience.
South Norwood and Thornton Heath residents will benefit when local facilities such as the library, South Norwood pool and South Norwood CETS will be linked through improved ICT networks to provide learning resources for pupils and residents.
Head teacher Patricia Mennie said: "William Stanley, the precision engineer, in 1907 set up this first trade school which was then at the leading edge of technology and vocational education.
"He would be proud to know that we were again at the leading edge of what the Secretary of State recently said was part of the drive for world class performance and high quality vocational education'. We are ready to embrace this for Stanley boys and this time round, the girls as well."
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