26 January 2006

A primary school website has won a top education award in Yahoo's annual competition.

Beating off the likes of the space agency NASA, Woodland Grange Primary School in Leicestershire has won the education category in Yahoo's Search Finds of the Year.

The winning site has a collection of pupils' accounts of field trips, weblogs, homework tips and photos from their Christmas nativity.

Woodland Grange deputy head teacher Richard Smyton said he was "thrilled" by the news.

"It's been an amazing journey from the very first phone call from Yahoo to us winning. I don't think that at any point we expected to win.

"The website has grown and evolved over the years.

"When we first did the website the Internet was still relatively new and there were relatively few schools on websites at that time."

The Yahoo judges picked the school site above the NASA site which provides online updates of the Rover Mars probes as well as the opinion polls website, YouGov.

Mr Williams, senior content adviser at Yahoo Search, said the aim of the competition was to point people in the direction of new and interesting sites and provide examples of how creatively the Internet can be used.

"We thought the Woodland Grange Primary School site was a fantastic use of the Internet as a tool," he explained.

"It's a really, really good example of how people can create an online community."

The school will now be put forward, along with the other winners in the seven different categories, for the public vote and battle it out for the title of People's Choice Find of the Year 2005.

© Adfero Ltd

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