Students will get a chance to experience the ''future'' of ACT schools when Kingsford Smith School in Holt starts lessons for the first time today.
The keys to the $45million P-10 school were handed over on Friday and today the ''super school'' will welcome 796 students up to Year 7.
A lack of enrolments for other grades will mean year groups will be progressively added to the school each year until 2012.
Education Minister Andrew Barr said the new school was a ''benchmark'' for future schools in the ACT.
''These are fantastic facilities, there is not another one like it in the territory,'' he said.
''We will aim to improve on what we have here with the new P-10 school in Tuggeranong, which will open in 2011, and the Gungahlin College.''
The school has a campus-like feel and when full will accommodate 1100 students and 110 staff.
There is an early-childhood wing, facilities for children with special needs and dedicated primary and high school areas.
Sustainability was a driver in overall design with the building maximising cross-ventilation, the northern sun in winter and plenty of shade in summer. The grounds are drought-tolerant and underground tanks store water which will be used for irrigation.
Mr Barr said the school also had a strong focus on technology with smartboards, computer labs and wireless internet.
Construction of the school had come in under time and budget, which allowed an extra 55 interactive whiteboards and 40 wireless access points to be bought.
A spokesman for Mr Barr said the fact that several year groups would start later had nothing to do with the project coming in under budget. Instead, the fitted-out rooms would be used by existing students for other activities.
Acting principal Bill Maiden said teachers and staff were gearing up for ''many excited children and parents'' today.
A walk-through of the school last week had seen more than 1000 people stream through the doors and many were ''utterly impressed''.
''It is hard not to be,'' he said. ''The design is simple yet practical ... it has a magnificent library, science labs in both middle and senior areas and specialist areas in both.''
Dr Maiden said a ''beauty'' of the school was that resources could be shared between the primary and high schools sectors something stand-alone primary schools couldn't offer. ''The children are very lucky to work in an environment like this,'' he said.
Mr Barr said a lack of interest for other grades did not reflect on the school. Some students studying in existing high schools would have been reluctant to relocate.
''That happens in pretty much every new school and you see that, in particular, when you are moving into a new area and creating an entirely new facility,'' he said.
''It is not surprising that students that had completed Years 7-9 in another high school weren't going to leave to come here for Year 10.
''What we are going to see over the next few years is that the current Year 7s will move into Year 8, then Year 9 and Year 10 and then the school will reach its capacity.''
The school is named after famed Australian aviator Sir Charles Kingsford Smith, who also lends his name to nearby Kingsford Smith Drive.
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