A NEW Bexley primary school is making waves in the construction world with its innovative design features and sustainability.

Upton Primary School in Upton Road, Bexley, has already won the 2010 London Building Excellence award in the best educational building category.

Now it has been shortlisted in the national awards for the local authority building control category .

Only 10 buildings from across England and Wales are in the running.

The new school buildings, officially opened in March, have been designed to maximise natural lighting and ventilation.

It has flexible teaching and learning areas to enable work between classes and across year groups, with direct links from the classrooms to outside learning areas.

Each classroom also has its own planted garden bed for the children to tend.

Heating is low temperature and underfloor and supplied by a low carbon technology bio-mass boiler using renewable energy.

The winner will be announced in November.