- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday June 11 2002 17.54 BST
When Jean Nield, headteacher at Tarvin primary school in Cheshire, wanted to make more use of her new computer suite and introduce more cross-curricular links for ICT, she hit on an ingenious idea - an internet sports day. Now with partner schools in New Zealand and Malta, and funding from the BT/Guardian Schools Awards, her idea is set to become reality in June.
A total of 450 children will participate in shared events, then record and exchange their results and impressions with one another. "It's based around the simple idea of one child running a race in Cheshire and another doing it in New Zealand and swapping stories about it," said Nield. "It gives them a shared experience to swap emails and pictures around - sport is something all children can relate to."
Nield will be spending the prize money on laptops to record and collate data on each event and relay the information to the partner schools; a multimedia projector to project images from the other schools onto a large screen; and a digital camcorder to make films of the sports day which can also be sent on to the other schools.
A link with New Zealand is also the basis of another award-winning project by St Andrew's Roman Catholic primary in Breightmet, Bolton. The St Andrew's junior children will design murals depicting life in Britain in Victorian times and the industrial revolution, while those in New Zealand will also design pictures depicting their history or environment. These will then be exchanged electronically for painting on local buildings.
The project will provide opportunities for children to exchange emails and video conferences, as well as give them a purpose in their art work, says Stephen MacDonald, teacher and ICT coordinator: "It will also give them a taste of real life. The New Zealand school is a very multicultural, whereas we're a catholic school and we don't have many ethnic groups. It's a good chance for our children to experience that."
He will use the BT money on new laptop for design work and emailing in lessons, on webcams so children can hold peer-to-peer video links over the school network, and a digital video camera to record progress of the project and send it over to partner school. "We're also getting a new laser colour printer to enhance printing of colour images produced by children over the school network so we can have high quality images sent from partner school," said MacDonald.
For Dave Hampton, ICT manager, the BT Awards money will help him make a real difference to the lives of some 5,000 children a year. And for the James Brindley Hospital Schools spread across 12 sites in Birmingham, it will mean he can purchase another four video conferencing systems to join the existing system on one site.
"Some children are on our wards for a long time and can't get outside to see the world - this means we can bring the world to them," he said.
"For instance, we've been to the Barrier Reef, with a live diver talking from the sea bed, to the Kruger National Park in South Africa to see a live vasectomy of a lion, and to Nasa for a tour of the space shuttle and to talk to astronauts live.
"It means the children can communicate with people and ask them questions, and those in isolation wards can join in with things like the carol service at Christmas."
He believes the educational benefits are phenomenal: "The children get to have things explained to them by experts, and they can ask questions - something they just can't do with a book or video."
See entry details on BT's website at: www.groupbt. com/ict/bt_schools_awards/ index.html
