Work is progressing well on a new Bath sixth-form centre which is due to open in September.
Students at St Gregory's Catholic College and St Mark's CE School will soon be able to stay on after the age of 16 and study for their A levels.
The New Sixth, which is being built on the St Gregory's site in Odd Down, is currently under construction and head teacher Raymond Friel gave Bath MP Don Foster a tour of the site to show him how it was looking.
The £2.8-million facility will include social space for sixth formers on the ground floor and the English department will move out of the main school and onto the top floor.
Mr Friel said he was pleased with how it was developing and said he hoped to have around 100 students joining the sixth form in September.
He said all the staff were looking forward to being able to retain the pupils that they had watched develop through their GCSE studies.
"We always hated to see them go," he said. "Every year we would have to say goodbye to the Year 11, and they would be telling us that they didn't want to go. It is going to be great to hang on to them."
The sixth form is a joint project between St Gregory's and St Mark's, which are federated and share Mr Friel as an executive head teacher.
It has been paid for through funding from Bath and North East Somerset Council and central Government.
The schools have also launched a fundraising campaign to find a further £1.5 million for a second phase of the scheme.
That section has been called The Gateway and will house a 250-seat auditorium and The Well, a pastoral centre for Christian activities both in the schools and the wider community.
Mr Foster said he was pleased to see how well the building work was progressing and believed the opening of the sixth form would boost the educational offering in Bath.
He added: "This will significantly reduce some of the incredibly long journeys that Catholic sixth formers make to go to St Brendan's Sixth Form College in Brislington.
"It should significantly reduce some of that congestion on the Bristol to Bath corridor."
For more information go to www.newsixthbath.org.uk.
