It was an evening of triumph in the face of more than a decade of adversity on Thursday when Helston Community College officially opened the doors of its rebuild project to the community.

While staff and students have been using the £17 million three-tier building on North Site since September, the event was the first time it has been seen by the wider public.

Retired staff members were invited along with town councillors, headteachers from other schools in the area, parliamentary candidates Derek Thomas and Andrew George, the Rotary and other guests for a special celebration in the new hall before the building was opened up to anyone from the town.

Student representatives were on hand to give tours of the new facilities, which include a new C-Block (maths and English), D-Block (science and PE) and E-Block (technology), plus a large sports hall, separate assembly hall and reception area.

Read more: First photos of Helston Community College £17million rebuild

Headteacher Wayne Jenkins said the new building was the result of a whole community effort, saying: “I never realised how special Helston is until I started working in it [in 1997].”

With the building safely up and the students moved in, it gave a chance to reflect on the conditions staff and students had been working in for the last decade or more.

Mr Jenkins recalled one occasion when just 30 minutes before he was due to give an assembly – somewhat fittingly about climate change – all the windows in the main hall crashed in and the glass fell out. This began the process all the windows shut, for safety.

Pat McGovern, headteacher between 2003 and 2014, who started the process of getting funding for a new building, had similar stories - including when, in 2007, 75 per cent of the floor raft in C-block cracked and had to be closed.

There were plans to bus students to different schools across Cornwall, before every builder and labourer in the Helston area was drafted in over the summer to re-establish classrooms in huts around the school site.

He later heard from someone involved in building Gwealhellis School, as it was originally in 1960, that they had used experimental materials in the form of china clay, straw and cement.

Dr McGovern also revealed how, during the interview process before he became headteacher, a fellow candidate disappeared halfway round a tour of the building, unable to face the challenges that lay ahead.

He described the evening as a “celebration of hope and optimism; of disappointment and adversity” after three failed attempts at funding – even getting to the point of picking tiles on one occasion - before finally being successful.

“Everybody worked their socks off to make this happen. It is a real triumph,” he added.

Donna Bryant, who was headteacher in 2015 when the £17 million funding was announced in the run up to the 2015 General Election, said when the architects asked staff what kind of building they wanted, the reply was: “A school at the heart of its community.”

As result, a colour scheme was chosen to match Flora Day and there is a giant mural of a lily of valley sprig in the central area.

Mrs Bryant, who is still based at the school as chief executive officer of the over-arching Southerly Point Co-operative Multi Academy Trust, added: “This school is Helston, and Helston is this school,” in recognition of the tens of thousands of students who had passed through it over the years and remained in the town.