ENTREPRENEUR Peter Ogden arrived in style at a school yesterday by landing on the playing field in his helicopter.

He visited Framwellgate School, in Durham, to find out more about its bid to set up a science centre.

The school officially became a science college when it reopened for the start of term last week.

But it has also submitted a bid to become one of nine regional science centres, which aim to boost the skills of teachers and pupils in a bid to address the shortfall of scientists and engineers.

The regional centres will support a national centre and the Department for Education and Skills will provide a major part of their start-up costs and running expenses until 2008.

But the cost of establishing new buildings has to be met locally.

Dr Ogden arrived to see how the Ogden Trust could get involved.

The trust provides specialist school sponsorship in technology, science, maths, computing and engineering.

Dr Ogden is a former Durham University student and helped set up the Ogden Centre for Fundamental Physics there, which was opened by Prime Minister Tony Blair last year.

He is now director of Computacenter, a company he co-founded, and chairman of Computasoft and Omnia Asset Management.

Headteacher Joan Sjovoll said: "This was a fact-finding visit. He came up from Cambridge and his helicopter caused quite a stir, the children were very excited about it.

"He came here to see the school and explore the potential of it and his involvement.

"He's suggested that he will come back, we hope it will be in his helicopter."

Organisations including Durham County Council, Nissan and Northumbrian Water have also expressed support for the science centre bid and Durham County Council pledged £2m to ensure its success.