Pupils at a Bradford school are being equipped with state-of-the-art personal organisers - in an experiment thought to be the first of its kind in the UK.

Around 100 Year 9 youngsters at Challenge College, Frizinghall, have been given the hi-tec gizmos, priced at around £200 each and sponsored by communications giant O2.

Each features an MP3 player and word processor as well as filtered internet access.

Education bosses hope the machines will improve attainment and attendance and have set up a unique experiment to put them to the test.

Phil McLear, manager of the City Learning Centre at Challenge College, said: "The project is being run in conjunction with Education Bradford. As far as we know, mobile phones have never been used in schools before in this way - this is a first in the UK."

Each personal organiser will allow access to the school's computerised learning resources anytime, anywhere. However, their phone capacity has been disabled.

Mark Chambers, Education Bradford's IT strategy manager, said: "The pupils can download attachments onto the phones which will support individual subjects.

"Pupils in Bradford have been given electronic personal organisers before but they did not include the capacity to download information from the net."

The performance of the pupils given the phones will be measured against the other half of their year group in this summer's Key Stage 3 exams.

The results will then be analysed by the University of Bristol and Education Bradford.

Dr Alan Beecham, who is co-ordinating the scheme for Education Bradford, said: "Outcomes are not certain but if pupils use them regularly with the software provided and with internet access to learning and revision resources we are hoping there will be an increase in attainment at the end of Key Stage 3 and in their SATS test.

"The phones will work out of school as the pupil is connected to the internet through the school facility and benefits from the filtered education service which the school receives.

"One of the things we are expecting to happen is that, when the teachers are giving out homework, the voice record function will be used to record it."

So far, the phones have proved a hit with pupils.

"The reaction so far has been fantastic - they love it," added Mr McLear.

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