STAFF at a Darlington school are deciding how to make the best use of a £450,000 windfall.

Hurworth Comprehensive School, which has specialist maths and computing status, will receive the money during the next four years and has said it will be used to benefit all students.

Deputy headteacher Dean Judson said: "Although we have maths and computing status, this is going to help all of the children across all subjects.

"This will allow us to employ a number of teachers, build new classrooms and bring the school into the forefront of new technology."

He said: "We have go a lot of hard work to do between now and September. We've got to get the governors together and talk about staffing, finance and remodeling the curriculum, but it's a challenge we're really looking forward to."

The school has 250 computers, but Mr Judson said: "We will be looking to improve that with interactive whiteboards, new software and hardware."

Hurworth was recently visited by Prime Minister Tony Blair, who presented a Healthy Schools Award.

To apply for specialist status the school had to raise £50,000 and Mr Judson paid tribute to the hard work that went into achieving that goal.

He said: "The amount of work people have done in terms of writing the bid and raising the finance has been absolutely staggering."