Fashion icon Zandra Rhodes will turn the first sod as building work begins at Strood Academy.

The designer will use a pink spade to match her trademark pink hair when she is joined by pupils for a ceremony at Strood Academy on Thursday.

Buildings are going up on playing fields of the existing school, formed after the closure of Chapter School and Temple School.

Zandra is chancellor of one of the academy’s sponsors, the University for the Creative Arts (UCA).

The Chatham-born icon studied at the College of Design, one of the colleges that formed UCA, before going on to dress some of the world’s most famous people.

Work is expected to be complete at Strood Academy, in Carnation Road, by August 2012.

The £29m buildings will include a sixth form area, sports facilities and facilities for video, film, graphics and 3D virtual modelling.

Funded by the Department for Education and Medway Council, it will also be available for community use and will have an outdoor performance area.

Head teacher Richard Hart said: "We feel honoured and excited to welcome Zandra Rhodes to the academy to officially mark the beginning of this exciting development.

"Her success is an inspirational example for all our pupils at the academy making her the ideal person to celebrate this important milestone."

Strood Academy, which specialises in business, enterprise and mathematics, opened in September 2009.

Bishop of Rochester Academy opened last September after the closure of Medway Community College and Chatham South School.

Brompton Academy opened in the same month after New Brompton College shut.

Work on both is due to start later this year, with work expected to finish in summer 2013.

Zandra, who became the UCA’s first chancellor last May, will then speak about her career in a lecture at the Rochester campus at 6pm on Thursday.