AS the last of the children trudged out of the new £37m Education Village yesterday, Darlington Borough Council officer Kevin Duffy breathed a sigh of relief.

"It has gone extremely well today," he said. "The kids came in brilliantly, there was one small hiccup over lunch, which ran late, but we have already had a meeting about it and it is sorted. They were all fed and we decided they didn't have to pay today."

Plans for the Education Village were announced in 2002. Since then, it has been hailed as a groundbreaking experiment and more than one in seven local authorities across the country have visited the 1,400-pupil school.

The Government's education select committee is to visit the school next month, and it will host a national conference for the Department for Education and Skills.

The school brings together Haughton Community, a secondary school, Springfield Primary and Beaumont Hill Technology College, a special school. It is designed to be similar in style to schools in the US - open to pupils in the day and the community in the evenings.

It has also been designed to place children with special needs at the heart of the school, including them as much as possible with mainstream pupils.

However, the £37.3m project hasn't been without setbacks. It was originally designed to open in November, but an attack on the swimming pool by vandals last summer set it back considerably.

Then, a planned opening for January was put back until April.

Meanwhile, a small group of parents at Springfield Primary -one of those making up the village - campaigned unsuccessfully to keep the budgets of the three schools independent.

As the building was almost complete, there was one more embarrassing mistake, as an eagle-eyed resident spotted a sign for the village included a spelling error. The sign, with an incorrectly spelt "technlogy", has been replaced.

But yesterday, Caroline Berry, head of primary education for Beaumont Hill, said: "The children really enjoyed their day. The facilities are so much better here, they love it.

"They have already started to make links with Springfield Primary pupils - and they have been playing together during break-time."

The village's executive director, Dame Dela Smith, said: "It went extremely well and we are very happy. In the end it is all about raising standards and meeting the needs of the community."

The Education Village's glass-lined corridors, central village green and colour-coded classrooms have been taking shape since spring 2004.

For Emma Spence, 26, a former Springfield Primary and Haughton Community School pupil, the opening of the village was a reason to celebrate.

She lives just metres away from the new school with her sons, Matthew and Adam Bearpark, aged seven and five, and she will soon start work as a teaching assistant.

"The building is gorgeous," she said. "I love it, I wish this building had been here when I went to school."

The boys will be able to stay at the same site until they are 16 - which should ease the transition from primary to secondary school.

Alan Milburn, Darlington MP, said: "The Education Village is one of the most impressive establishments in the country, and it will give generations of children in Darlington the very best start. We can be very proud of having such a first-class facility like this, and the village is at the heart of an educational renaissance in the town."

Yesterday, as pupils got used to their surroundings, the heavy machinery had already moved onto the Haughton Community School site. The old building will be flattened and replaced with playing fields and football pitches.

And last night, as staff and children left the building after their first school day, up to 80 children arrived to use the football pitches, an aerobics class got under way and five-a-side footballers flooded into the sports hall.

Jim Petterson, operations manager for Kajima, the company which has financed the project, said: "The third-party activities can now commence, people can use the sports hall, swimming pool and classrooms.

"The facilities here are out of this world. It is like Disney. They make you want to come to school."

To find out more, visit www.kajimacommunity.co.uk