PUPILS and teachers at a Bolton school have made a giant leap into the hi-tech future after opening a £570,000 computer centre.

The students at Sharples School can now benefit from more than 120 computer terminals with a huge amount of software as well as the Internet.

But it is not just the pupils who now benefit - the Information and Communications Technology Centre will throw its doors open in the evenings to parents and other adults.

Headteacher Kevin Clarke said: "It's an example of a school working as a partnership with the local community as a centre of learning for children and adults alike.

"If the parents are coming in and local businesses then pupils will see that there are practical benefits to learning IT in the real world. And it will prepare them to study courses at sixth form."

The centre will be the most up to date in Bolton and will give pupils the chance to surf the net to help them do their own research for other subjects.

Software can also help to boost numeracy and literacy levels.

Alongside the GCSE already available in information technology, students will now be able to take a practical NVQ. The centre was build on a former courtyard in the middle of the school.

It took three years to plan and build the new centre and an extension to the library.

Bob Atkinson the former head teacher - now the head at St James in Farnworth - was welcomed back to the school to open the centre.

Mr Atkinson had done much of the work to bring the centre to fruition before he left the school last December.

Mr Clarke added: "It is largely thanks to Mr Atkinson we have the centre. He organised the building. I finished it off by filling it up. The staff and pupils are grateful for all the work he, and others, put into bringing it all about."