YOUNGSTERS from a secondary school in Darlington have had the chance to influence the future of education.

The 14 pupils, from Hummersknott School and Language College, travelled to London to meet Minister of State for School Standards Stephen Timms, to discuss the Government's White Paper on reforming secondary education. During the visit, they also met television personality Carol Vorderman.

They were among more than 100 students from across the country who were invited to take part in the consultation.

They discussed issues including disruptive students, school safety, options choices and mixed faith education.

Student Gillian Lloyd suggested pupils should make options decisions at the end of year eight instead of year nine, to give them more time to study their chosen subjects.

Jonathon Ainscough felt children should choose the language they want to study in year seven, to avoid three years of study in subjects in which they are not interested.

Zeeshan Abbas said: "Because our school is a language college, we have to take two languages, but it is narrowing our chances of getting as many A grades at GCSE as possible if you are not good at languages."

On the problem of disruptive pupils, Ellie Martin said: "We talked about what people should do about disruptive children, but we thought isolation did not really work."

Headteacher David Henderson said: "It was seen as a big issue in the discussions, not just among teachers, but also the children, because it is frustrating for them if they are in a class with someone who doesn't want to learn."

Single faith education was another issue raised, with most youngsters seeing mixed religion schools as the way forward.

Some were sceptical about whether their opinions would make any difference, but others hoped their views would be taken more seriously by policy-makers.

Mr Timms said: "The children had a lot of ideas about how we can structure policy to take account of their needs and aspirations."