In the middle of a council housing estate in the town of Blantyre stands what some are calling the future of primary education in Scotland.

St Blane's Primary School, completed a month ago, is the newest of its kind in the country and its innovative design is setting the standard for the school building programme currently underway locally and nationally.

The £6.5million school was designed by RMJM, the internationally renowned Edinburgh architects that helped to deliver the Scottish Parliament building.

After working in consultation with the head teacher, Anne Marie Reid, the company has produced a two-storey building in which design features intended to stimulate learning and social interaction between pupils have been combined with an attempt to bring the outdoors inside by means of natural light and ventilation.

“In an old school you would have a long corridor and classrooms, but we wanted to avoid that and make it much more fluid,” Stephen McGarrity, the lead architect said. “We also make our schools site-specific. The point is for children, parents and teachers to identify with the school and feel it is their own.”

The priority for Mrs Reid was to make the school, which has 250 pupils, as uplifting and airy as possible. “I asked for a lot of glass, because I wanted it to look open both upstairs and downstairs,” she said. “There is a lot of evidence to suggest that a brighter environment can help children to engage more with their lessons.”

St Blane's is one of 124 primaries being replaced or refurbished by South Lanarkshire Council as part of a nationwide school-building programme initiated by the previous Labour-Lib Dem Executive and continued by the present SNP administration.

Although each local authority has different needs, South Lanarkshire is spending £650million to overhaul its school estate by 2012, making it one of the biggest school building programmes in Europe. Primaries are being funded directly by the council and secondaries are being paid for by private-public partnership deals. Five primary schools were built before St Blane's. They are confident that it is their best yet.

“We're very happy with the way the architects have manipulated the area to maximise the space. They have used every nook and cranny, giving pupils more room to move about,” Vance Sinclair, a council spokesman said. “We'll be looking to try and replicate what they have done here elsewhere in our programme.”

Among the unique features are a spacious open area on the ground floor, where teachers can take younger pupils to participate in active learning, and a series of mezzanine-style spaces on the upper floor, which houses a library, science room and “wet” room for arts and crafts lessons. The dining room has been fitted with round tables so that pupils face each other, and its windows face onto the playground to promote further social exchange.

While the classrooms are more conventional, each has been equipped with a state-of-the art interactive whiteboard with touch screen on which children perform maths and English exercises.

When The Times visited the school senior pupils were using the board to play a version of Channel 4's Countdown.

Pupils have had little time to adjust to their new school, which opened last Thursday, but their verdict was overwhelmingly positive, according to Mrs Reid.

“They love it,” she said. “I asked one what comment they would make and they said it was luxury. They like the light and space, and are especially keen on the interactive whiteboards and dining hall - the previous one faced onto our car park.

“Some of the older ones have even remarked on the fact that the lights are switched on and off by motion; they are very pleased we are saving energy.”

Mrs Reid believes that the building will encourage pupils to enjoy their time at school.

“Parents said this morning that the children could not wait to come to school. It might have cost millions but it was worth every penny,” she said.

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