THE final entries are in for the School Build Challenge and schools will now have to wait and see if they are one of the lucky finalists.

Over the last three weeks entries have been coming in for the competition that will see three lucky schools win a share of a £6,000 makeover.

The first prize will be an outdoor makeover to the value of £3,000 with runners up winning £2,000 and £1,000.

The Dorset Echo teamed up with construction company Leadbitter to run the competition.

One of the final 23 entries was Buckland Newton Primary School who are hoping that their entry will provide the sound of music to the school grounds.

The pupils and staff at the school put together ideas for an outdoor music area complete with xylophone.

Year four and five teacher Simon Mullen said: “We want to develop an outdoor music area, with big musical instruments in the playground.

“It will affect the school from a visual point of view and it will help with behaviour.

“We have noticed when children have not much to do in the playground, that’s when they can get into a bit of bother.”

He added that pupils had been learning how to write persuasive letters and were planning on using their skills to convince the judging panel to consider their ideas.

Mr Mullen said: “It would mean a huge amount to them. As a new thing in the playground and a new feature it would be great.”

He added: “A lot of the playground stuff is sports related, if children aren’t interested in sport they don’t have a lot to do and this will be good for them.”

All the entries have now been collected in and a panel of judges including Dorset Echo editor Toby Granville, regional director of Leadbitter Dave Cook and South Dorset MP Richard Drax, will look over the entries and decide on the finalists.

Mr Granville said: “We have been inundated with some fantastic ideas which we are looking forward to sifting through with our team of great judges.

“I’d like to say thank you to everybody who entered and I am looking forward to announcing the finalists shortly.”

After the finalists are announced tokens will appear in the paper for just over three weeks.

To win, the final schools have to collect as many as possible.

The total token count for each school will then be worked out by dividing the number of tokens by the number of children in the school, to ensure the final result is fair.