Students at Strathcona Tweedsmuir School will have some new digs built to help further their learning experience.

The school broke the ground on their new expansion project Wednesday.

A new elementary school building along with significant changes of the school's fine arts facilities and enhancing the heart of STS in the dining area and foyer will take 14 months to complete as soon as the school year is out.

600 plus students & staff at Strathcona Tweedsmuir School breaking ground on their new expansion project. (Photo courtesy of Jennifer Clipperfield))

Head of STS Dr. Bill Jones says they've been planning this expansion for quite some time.

"The project has been in the works for close to a decade I guess from when we first began to talk about it so it's exciting to finally get to this point," he says.

The private school hasn't had too many facelift's in it's history but like the Foothills Composite High School modernization it's something that has to be done says Jones.

"There were three additions put onto the building in the 90's, the science wing, fine arts theatre and instruction area along with the sports hall built in 1999 but since then there hasn't been any other building so it's been 17 years since we've had an opportunity like this one."

The $24 million 100 percent donor funding expansion will changes to the drama room, visual art spaces, small group and individual rehearsal room among other area see changes.

Jones says they've kept up with the times as to how classrooms should look.

"The design is really thinking about how student centric it is, so it's designed around what we know today about teaching and learning and how students actually learn. It's going to be very functional space, instead of the old industrial design of long corridors with classrooms with box like shapes along the sides it won't look anything like that."

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