A NEWTON Aycliffe school is leading the way in a pioneering programme to develop science teaching.

Twenty-first Century Science is an initiative designed to make the subject more relevant to children by linking it to everyday life.

Woodham Community Technology College is one of 80 schools around the country taking part in a pilot project. If successful, the scheme will be made more widely available from September 2006.

Madeleine Walton, a science teacher at Woodham, designed a laboratory based on the principles of the project.

Professor John Holman, of the University of York, one of the architects of the programme, visited Woodham yesterday to open the laboratory.

Prof Holman said photographs of the laboratory would be posted on the project website as an example for other schools to follow.

The former teacher could not resist demonstrating a couple of experiments, and explained how science could be linked to things they observe every day.

He said: "I think Twenty-first Century Science is so important because it's all about the science of everyday things. I have to say that this school is exceptionally pioneering in the way it has welcomed Twenty-first Century Science, and the way it has taken these opportunities."

The professor who opened the laboratory by cutting a string of DNA instead of a ribbon, congratulated the school on its initiative.