FOUR-year-old Catherine Parkin starts school tomorrow with a special spring in her step.

Catherine, from Shildon, County Durham, is one of a group of pre-school nursery pupils to benefit from daily food supplements containing a unique blend of fish oil and evening primrose oil.

The small, informal trial follows a spectacularly successful food supplements trial involving 123 County Durham junior schoolchildren last year.

The world's biggest trial of food supplements suggests that a mixture of high quality fish oil and evening primrose oil can boost brainpower and improve behaviour by compensating for dietary deficiencies.

Following the widely reported Durham trial of food supplements, known as eye.q, organised by North-East educational psychologist Dr Madelaine Portwood, sales have increased by 300 per cent, according to the manufacturer, Equazen.

A year after the Durham trial, many of the families who took part are keeping their children on daily eye.q supplements.

Now it seems that the behaviour of pre-school children can be dramatically improved by the supplements.

Catherine's mother, Kelly Parkin, is convinced that the daily supplements have transformed her daughter's behaviour.

Before taking the eye.q supplements, Catherine would not sit still for five minutes and scratched constantly because of severe eczema.

But, after a few weeks of taking the liquid vanilla eye.q, her mother noticed a huge difference.

Not only did Catherine's eczema improve, she was able to sit down and concentrate. She would complete tasks easily and without complaint, and she completely calmed down.

"There has been a big, noticeable difference in Catherine's behaviour. She is improving all of the time and concentrating a lot better. We were having to occupy her all of the time but she now happily plays on her own," said Mrs Parkin.

"I am hoping that this will really help her when she starts school tomorrow. I am really pleased she was one of the ten children selected to take part in the trial."

Mrs Parkin was so impressed that she put her older son, David, on the same daily food supplements, taken in the form of a linctus on a spoon.

"He started on eye.q in January. We noticed a difference within a few weeks. His teacher says he is improving. It is working wonders," she added.

Andrew Westerman, headteacher at Timothy Hackworth Junior School, Shildon, said that not all of the pre-school children at the nursery attached to his school had showed signs of improvement, but a majority had benefited.

"We did it informally because we thought it was worth doing. It is very encouraging and leads us to believe it helps younger children," said Mr Westerman.

"The advantage with younger children is that you can catch them before they start to experience failure.

"A child who you help when they are ten has already lost some schooling. A child aged three or four has a school life ahead of them."

Life has changed for Mr Westerman since the Durham trial.

"I cannot believe the response that we have had. We are still getting enquiries from all over the world about the eye.q trial.

"I get everyone from grandparents to doctors and from schools to local education authorities asking about the trial," he said.

Since the trial, he has also been in demand as a speaker at conferences.

"I am going to a conference in London and one in Dublin in the near future," he added. "I want to tell as many people as possible about eye.q. You can help change people's lives.

"If the child is happy about going to school, it affects the family as well."

* For information about the eye.q experiment, visit www.durhamtrial.org