AN organisation has been launched to give North-East children with Down syndrome an early foothold on the education ladder.

The Darlington centre of the Down Syndrome Educational Trust will be based in Haughton Education Village, the UK's first privately-funded "superschool".

When it opens in November, the centre will work with pre-school age children with Down syndrome to help improve their language, reading, writing and numeracy skills.

"We aim to help the children to improve their life quality and increase the likelihood that they will successfully integrate into mainstream education," says its chairman, Sandy King.

Down syndrome occurs in approximately one in every 1,000 children, yet Mr King and his daughter, Maggie Hart - whose year-old son, Alexander, has Down Syndrome - found there was nowhere north of Chester to get the sort of practical early educational help and support Alexander needs.

Mrs Hart, a primary school teacher in Bishop Auckland, visited the Sarah Duffen Centre, in Portsmouth, a recognised leader in scientific research into the development and education of individuals with Down syndrome. She returned home determined to provide a similar, if smaller, centre in the North of England.

Mrs Hart, of Edgecombe Drive, Darlington, says: "Research has shown that providing learning development assistance at an early age, including speech therapy and social awareness, gives Down syndrome people much greater social inclusion and greater life expectations in adulthood."

The Darlington centre, while run by volunteers, has secured the collaboration of leading medical and educational practitioners. They include Dr Ruth Carpenter, a leading consultant paediatrician with a special interest in development disabilities, and Dame Della Smith, former headteacher at Beaumont Special School, Darlington, now chief executive of Haughton Education Village.

Parents of the first group of children who will attend the facility, who are mainly from the Darlington, Tees Valley and County Durham areas, will meet for the first time at Beaumont school, next Friday.

A registered charity, the centre has applied for money from the Local Network Fund and hopes to secure community grants, charitable donations and income from its own fundraising efforts, but its volunteers scored a major breakthrough when they won the backing of Darlington Business Club, which has adopted it as its charity of the year.

Business club committee member Michael Wilkinson, managing director of the Elms Associates training consultancy, said: "A lot of families are affected by Down syndrome but, while there is excellent provision for older children and adults, there is nothing for children of pre-school age."

Professor Sue Buckley, director of The Sarah Duffen Centre, who last year was awarded the OBE for her services to special needs education in the Queen's Birthday Honours, will be the guest of honour at the official launch of the Darlington centre on November 4.

For more information about the Darlington centre of the Down Syndrome Educational Trust, contact Sandy King on 01325 465317 or Maggie Hart on 01325 369895.

l Volunteers will be packing shopping bags in aid of the Down Syndrome Education Trust at Sainsbury's, Darlington, today, from 11am.