It's an impossibility for the United States to win this year's World Cup, but it is possible and likely that Brazil will...

You wouldn't normally expect to hear such a statement in a school maths lesson, but this is just one of the ways in which the world's most famous football event is helping pupils at Russell Hall First School, Queensbury, improve their knowledge.

In this case it's a quirky way of explaining probabilities, but events in France '98 - both on and off the pitch - are also featuring in geography lessons, languages and religious education.

Headteacher Michael Ford explained: "The work is largely focused around our collection of flags. We've been collecting them for two years. Now we have more than 30, including most of the countries represented in the World Cup.

"As well as being decorative, they are used to support a wide range of curriculum areas. We haven't done a major project on the World Cup but it is certainly a useful reference point."

Teaching staff agree. Glenis O'Hara, geography co-ordinator at Russell Hall, said: "The flags are an invaluable resource which we often use when comparing the UK to other countries during our Key Stage 2 geography work."

And personal, social and health education co-ordinator Liz Bowen added: "Using our flag collection during the World Cup has enabled us to raise issues such as objects - in this case a flag - being precious to one person and therefore worthy of respect from another."

But football analysis has always been packed with statistics like the percentage of play each team has and phrases such as 'goal difference' and 'last 16'. So it's not surprising that the World Cup is proving particularly useful when it comes to maths.

Maths co-ordinator Kathy Howcroft said: "The World Cup has been an exciting opportunity to introduce concepts like probability with examples which the children can understand clearly.

"For example, when using the terms likely, possible and impossible a country's chances of winning the World Cup could be in the possible category on one day and the impossible category the next - as was the case with Scotland last week."

As for the pupils? They're in no doubt that integrating events like the World Cup can only help to make lessons (and homework) even more enjoyable.

Nine-year-old Ian Burnell said: "It has been interesting to spot flags in the crowd when I have been watching the matches and then come into school next morning and see if we have that particular one hanging in the corridor."

Classmate Jemma Ackroyd added: "The homework has been interesting. Last week we had find the different countries playing in the World Cup on a map."

So, at a time when the nation seems to have split into two groups - football haters and football lovers - the message from Russell Hall First School is that you don't have to be a sports fanatic to get something out of the World Cup.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.