A school newspaper scheme that started life in a Harold Hill primary school has won government praise and is now going national.

The Harold Hill Times attracted the attention of Dewhurst Butchers which was so impressed with the paper that it is expanding the scheme to every place in the country where they have a shop.

Director General of schools David Normington from the DfEE was at the launch of the scheme at Brookside Infant School and was caught by a group of the school's cub reporters.

He said: "This is a great idea and a fantastic way to encourage literacy, especially as it is the National Year of Reading. The newspaper has done really well in Harold Hill and I hope it is as well received elsewhere in the country."

Joining Mr Normington was Graham Heasman the director of Dewhurst Butchers, Harold MP Keith Darvill and Dave Butler, managing director of the Havering education and business partnership.

The original newspaper idea was brought to life by Brookside Infants head teacher Judith Puttick who thought a newspaper was an "obvious choice" for a stimulating and interesting activity the children could take part in to help with literacy.

Each school in the Harold Hill partnership sold local businesses advertising space and raised sponsorship to cover production costs.

The children from each of the schools involved wrote stories, took photographs and then passed the copy to a team of sub editors to do the design and layout on the IT equipment at Harold Hill Community School.

The first edition of the 12-page tabloid newspaper won a highly-commended award in the Daily Telegraph School Newspaper of the year. It was so successful that the second edition was bumped up to 16 pages.

That edition saw the Harold Hill branch of Dewhurst supporting the paper by a large advert. The manager was pleased with the response he received and passed the information on to Dewhurst's head office.

Mr Heasman said: "We were very impressed with standards achieved by these young people. Dewhurst is a community-based business and we believe in supporting the local community.

"As part of our support for the National Year of Reading we are launching the scheme and I am looking forward to seeing the first newspaper roll of the presses in the near future."

The schools involved in the project are Broadford Primary School, Brookside Infants School, Brookside Junior School, Harold Hill Community School, Hilldene Primary School, Ingrebourne JM&I School, Mead JM&I School, Pyrgo Priory JM&I School, St Ursula's Infants School and St Ursula's Junior School.

Making the news . . . casting their eyes over the Harold Hill Times are David Normington, MP Keith Darvill and Graham Heasman with Brookside infants George Lawrence and Gabby Gaduza, both six.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.