We're so lucky to go to school in a castle... It's like being in Harry Potter

Pupils learn in wizard stately home setting after primary shut by floods

- HEATHER MAIN

It is like a real-life version of Harry Potter as four-year-old Alex Milton and his big sister Izzy trot up the school path to their very own Hogwarts Castle.

But this isn't a school for wizards.

The Milton children are two of the 60 pupils and 10 members of staff who have swapped Kenton Primary School, near Exeter, for magnificent Powderham Castle.

Charles Courtenay, the 19th Earl of Devon, lowered the drawbridge and welcomed them into his 14th century home after their normal school nearby was catastrophically flooded.

While waiting for it to be rebuilt, they are soaking up 600 years of history, enjoying lessons in a Victorian school room, learning Tudor dancing in a secret ballroom and doing PE in the grounds. Lorraine Curry, executive headteacher at Kenton, said: "It's really a dream come true, we feel incredibly lucky.

"It's such a wonderful opportunity for the children. They've been to visit the animals kept on site, alpacas and donkeys in the old stables, too.

"And it's a lot easier to teach the Tudors and Victorians when the children are sitting in the very spaces that these people lived in."