Police are investigating a fire which damaged a school's £1.1 million language centre just months after it opened.

The centre at Hove Park School will not reopen until September after the fire yesterday afternoon. The classroom where the fire started at 2.30pm was almost completely destroyed.

The rest of the building suffered severe smoke damage and several windows were broken. The fire happened just as pupils were about to return after break-time.

Peter Bratton, headteacher of the school in Nevill Road, Hove, said everyone was evacuated safely. But he was disappointed by the damage to the new building, which is key to the school's plans to become a specialist language college.

Mr Bratton said: "We haven't even had the official opening yet. The building will have to be properly cleaned-up, which means it won't be usable until the new term. It will still be the hub and heart of our future activities."

Mr Bratton suggested it may have been caused by a problem with an overhead projector.

A Hove fire station spokesman said: "The fire was going quite strongly to cause such damage to the room. The classroom was totally gutted."

In February, the Government gave the school a grant for the next four years to teach languages to the whole community. That made it the first school in Brighton and Hove to specialise in languages and one of only 15 in England.