BRADON Forest School has received a national award for its computer work.

The Purton school is one of the first in England to be awarded the new National ICT Mark from the Government.

And the pupils there are thrilled their school has attracted national attention.

Last autumn Bradon Forest applied for the National Association Of Advisers For Computing In Education award.

Just to apply for the award involved a rigorous review and assessment of all aspects of Information Communication Technology.

Teaching staff had to demonstrate how ICT is used in general learning and how teachers incorporate it into their schemes of work.

They also had to show how the subject plays a large part in general classroom activities, curriculum assessment of students' progress, data tracking and in the whole school staff development.

Headteacher Len Spiers, the head of ICT, David Wright and Fred Dundas, the school's network manager, have worked as the ICT core team in leading the strategic developments and initiatives that have resulted in the school being given this prestigious award.

Mr Spiers said: "It was an award that you can only be invited to take part in and then there was only a 65 per cent pass rate.

"Even though we're an arts college I'm very keen that we try to specialise in everything and I'm delighted at how the staff have really embraced ICT.

"A major feature of our assessment was Bradon Forest's effective use of ICT across the curriculum.

"The ICT capability of our pupils is underlined by the very successful 2005 GCSE business communications and ICT exam results taken by all Year 11."

In the exams, 91 per cent of students achieved grades A* C and 47.5 per cent achieved the top grades of A* and A.

Mr Wright recently attended an exhibition in London to receive the award on behalf of the school from Neil McLean, the executive director for Schools, British Educational Communications and Technology Agency.

To get the award the school has worked closely with the Wiltshire school's ICT adviser Ian Baker and they would like to thank him and his team for their encouragement and support.