Starting next week, students in Kindergarten to Grade 12 in Bawlf, Alberta, will head back to class in a brand new school – the first one to be built in their school division in decades.

In the days leading up to the first day of school, staff at Bawlf School were working hard: unpacking, and getting ready for students – and they’re looking forward to it.

“I just want to be standing out on the front step with arms wide open saying, ‘Come on in guys, you will be so excited’,” Principal Diana White said.

The new school comes with a variety of features, including natural light, wide lockers, a food lab, and a number of common areas – many of the ideas for the designs of the school came from students.

“Many of the details I anticipate will be small things that they’ll recognize as being their voice heard in the design process,” White said.

One major design feature of the school is students in the senior grades won’t have traditional classrooms – the rooms include garage doors that can be opened to expand the space.

“I think they’re going to be in awe actually, it’s such a different environment,” teacher Theresa Kruchten said.

“I’m blown away that they put a school like this in rural Alberta, and recognize that they deserve this time of facility as well,” Kruchten said.

The new building is a major improvement over the old school – a 60-year-old building that staff said was beyond repair.

The new school was built next to the old one, the first new school in the Battle River School Division in 30 years, and the old structure is in the process of being torn down.

However, demolition work was a little behind, but teachers are planning on taking advantage of the situation, saying it will become a learning process for the students

“To see how not only the building comes down, but it is sorted out and recycled, and what happens to those materials,” White said.

“It’s a new start for a community and our school division,” Dian Hutchinson with the Battle River School Division said.

With files from Amanda Anderson