A Balham academy has been awarded £39,000 to upgrade their Design and Technology equipment and provide new curricular and extracurricular activities for students.

Chestnut Grove Academy was chosen for the grant by the trustees of The Wolfson Foundation’s Secondary Education Programme, after a two-stage application assessed by a specialist schools panel.

August 2014: Community thank you to dedicated Balham headteacher Margaret Peacock

August 2014: Balham's Chestnut Grove Academy marks the centenary

Headteacher, Christian Kingsley, said: "This is a tremendous boost to Chestnut Grove.

"Over the last few years we have been working hard to improve the Academy, the positive results being reflected in our academic results, the behaviour of our students and our increasing popularity as a choice for secondary education in Wandsworth.

"We have been eager to improve our facilities and securing grants and donations such as this ensures that we can provide state of the art education to our hard working and deserving students."

The academy will start an upgrade of the whole site in 2016, which will upgrade the accommodation for the first time since the 1970s, under the Government’s Priority Schools Building Programme.

Nightingale ward Councillor, Ian Hart, said: "This technology award to Chestnut Grove Academy by the Wolfson Foundation's is very welcome.

"We live in a global digital age and it is vital that our children are given the very best education in technology in order to compete in the global jobs market when they leave full-time education."