A special celebration of songs, games and festivities took place at a Millom school to celebrate the opening of its new £45,000 extension in January 1995.

Catherine Windsor, the former headteacher of Thwaites School who started the project, performed the traditional ribbon-cutting opening ceremony to rounds of applause.  

And then the children performed a specially-written song about the project called, naturally enough, Thwaite’s School’s New Extension.

Headteacher Carol Green said the main part of the work had been finished the previous May but there had still been a few small jobs to be finished before staff and governors felt it was ready for an official opening.

The new extension provided a staff room, a disabled toilet, additional cloakroom space and a new resource area which, among other things, would be used as a library.

In 1997, a Thwaites schoolteacher had fulfilled a lifelong ambition at the age of 50 while raising funds for the school.

Under the headline ‘Racing to raise cash for Lakeland school’, The Mail reported that Jenny Helm, who had taught at the school for eight years, had recently completed the Coniston Triathlon in 3 hours and 40 minutes.

The course involved running up and down Coniston Old Man, cycling around Coniston Water and canoeing from one side of the lake to the other.

Mrs Helm said: "I feel quite pleased as it has always been a personal ambition of mine and raising money for the school was my incentive.

"Another one of my ambitions is to do the Leridgrue, in Scotland, so maybe I'll do that next."

The sponsorship money, which was to go towards school funds, was being collected.

Mrs Helm said: "It will go towards things that we need, probable something special that we can't usually afford as that's what we do when we get a large amount of money."