A Bradford secondary school helping to change the way children learn has announced a lucrative tie-up with 21 countries on the far side of the world.

Staff at Dixons City Academy formed a cutting-edge multi-media design, development and production company in 2001.

Seven years on, Interactive Learning has forged links with the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) - a group of nations who work together to boost trade and industry.

The company has delivered a Business English multi-media package to APEC after embarking on a trade mission to the region.

Sales manager Jon Bliss said: "The CD-rom teaches business English to people where English is not their first language.

"I play a loud American who asks all sorts of questions down the phone. It's lots of fun and is based around interactivity and role playing.

"It is aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises who are starting to export and enter the global market. We are aiming to deliver it to all 21 APEC countries and APEC staff have been trained to deliver that."

The package, which includes 25 hours of material plus role playing exercises, took Interactive Learning ten months to put together.

APEC members account for 41 per cent of the world's population. Members include Australia, Singapore, the Republic of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Japan and China.

Interactive Learning has also produced a six CD-rom series which uses popular culture and humour to help teach information technology and business studies to secondary school children.

Company bosses are now in talks with distributors keen to sell the package in India, Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines.

The Thailand-based Harrow International School has already bought the full series.

Tony Hosker, operations director, said: "This is an exciting opportunity for us.

"We were overwhelmed by the response to our educational software. The local suppliers seem to enjoy the fun element of the software combined with the more serious learning objectives provided by the interactive activities."

"It's a really exciting time for us," said Mr Bliss.

"If the south-east Asia market turns out to be as exciting an opportunity as we think it can be then we will start looking at putting our software into other developing nations such as South Africa and the Middle East."

Interactive Learning is based next to the Ripley Road school. All company profits - more than £100,000 since the firm was established - are ploughed back into Dixons to benefit pupils.

Mr Bliss came to Dixons as a student teacher before joining Interactive Learning full-time. He is a former actor who has appeared in Coron-ation Street and Brookside.