A SCHOOL for children with special needs is planning to link up with youngsters in Africa.

The link will be part of an environmental Internet competition.

Beaumont Hill School, in Darlington, is one of the schools which has already entered the Web Power competition, run by The Northern Echo and supported by Northern Electric.

Schools are asked to use the web to help the environment and stand a chance of winning £5,000, with which to pay their power bill.

A panel of judges will look at how the Internet is used to cover an environmental project.

The competition has already won the backing of Prime Minister Tony Blair, MP for Sedgefield.

Beaumont Hill has been in contact with schools in Africa and is hoping to set up a video conference to look at environmental issues.

Rachel Gordon, an information communications technology technician at the school, said that the work would probably be linked up to Beaumont Hill's already existing website.

"We are going to try to find an environmental issue to do with Africa and hopefully do some video conferencing with a school," she said.

Pupils have already been familiarising themselves with the Internet as a research tool and will start on the major part of the project after the Easter break.

The deadline for entries for the competition is June 30.

To find out more, visit www.thisisthenortheast.co.uk/eco/webpower. Beaumont Hill's website is at www.beaumonthill.darlington. sch.uk