Greenhead Grammar School has unveiled the space age plans for its new £1 million computer learning centre.

The purpose built high-tech City Learning Centre will have two floors crammed with state of the art technology and interior design straight from the decks of the Starship Enterprise.

The futuristic building will include an entrance with atrium and a caf lounge area that leads to a cyber caf equipped with 35 PCs.

Upstairs there will be two training suites complete with 15 PCs each and modern projection facilities that will bring the pen and paper into the 21st century. A lift will also be installed to provide access for disabled people.

Youngsters at the school will have full use of the facilities that will be opened up to businesses and the local community after the school bell has sounded.

The building will be delivered to the school fully assembled and will be winched into position in a school courtyard near the existing IT Comm suite, opened last year.

Head of information, communication and technology Brian Smith has been handed the task of overseeing the development of the project.

He says: "For the first time we have got real money to do a real job and we are certainly going for it.

"In many ways we will be operating like a leisure centre, as we will be open from 8am to potentially 9pm, so that everyone can use the facilities.

"Anyone will be able to come in and use the 35 PCs in the cyber caf and we will be able to provide each person with their own e-mail address and web space for local community groups.

"We will have an Internet capability equal to that of large companies, enabling us to operate up to 5,000 e-mail connections at a time. The upstairs training suites can be booked by local schools, companies and community groups for any form of IT training or activities.

"They will be able to use the video conferencing facilities and a system whereby students will be able to produce something on their screen and then transfer it electronically to a projection at the front of the room.

"We will also be able to loan out digital cameras and scanners to people in the community and all our PCs will be fitted with state of the art flat screens."

In the region of £250,000 will be spent on constructing the new building with another £250,000 going on equipment.

About £150,000 will be spent annually for the next three years to cover the staffing costs of the centre.

The development is scheduled to be up and running by the beginning of November.

Meanwhile, youngsters at Greenhead are using an on-line teacher to sort out their homework queries.

Pupils have been logging on to Channel 4's web site and sending their homework hitches to a teacher hooked up to the Internet, who helps the youngsters to solve their problems. The web site can be accessed on ww.homeworkhigh.comm

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