IT could be a case of back to school for one company preparing to set up office inside an academy.

Portslade Aldridge Community Academy has applied for planning permission to convert a classroom at the school into an office for the next five years.

Groundwork South Trust will be hoping they will not need an economics lesson as the proposed new tenants of the unused classrooms in Chalky Road.

The room is being made available as the school still only has partial occupancy and it is not anticipated that student numbers will increase sufficiently for the space to be required in the upcoming years.

The 121 square metres of classroom space will be used to accommodate up to ten employees.

The offices are in a self-contained suite with their own entrance, parking and toilets with no access to the rest of the academy building.

The school had a £12.7 million new-build during its conversion from Portslade Community College but the office conversion is based in the older school buildings.

The Portslade school’s sister establishment Brighton Aldridge Community Academy will soon have nine classrooms free at their Lewes Road site when the Bilingual Primary School moves to a new purpose-built school at Hove Park at the end of February.

However education bosses said those classrooms would not be made available to businesses but instead will be used by the academy’s “growing student numbers”.

An Aldridge Foundation spokesman said the space will used to expand the sixth form facilities with both academies jointly developing new courses including the Aldridge Cricket Academy, the Brighton Digital Media Academy and in dance.

The spokesman said the academy’s income from renting out the offices could not be revealed due to “commercial confidence”.

He added: “The academy specifically sought an organisation with activities compatible with the school and our vision.

“The prospective tenants are a charity engaged in community work.

“The safeguarding of students is always our primary consideration when assessing any use of our facilities.

“Aldridge Community Academies are community assets and are used to providing facilities for the community, from the Mile Oak Public Library at PACA to sports and dance facilities at BACA.

“It is very common for schools to manage this these days without any security issues.”