A FARNWORTH school's "perfect" prefect training scheme has attracted the attention of the world's media.

And according to the headteacher, the youngsters are taking to the interest shown in them by film crews and journalists, "like ducks to water."

In the past week staff and pupils at George Tomlinson School, Kearsley, have been inundated with requests from newspapers, television and radio for interviews.

The reason for all this interest is that the school employs outside consultancies - this year Dale Carnegie in Whitefield - to train its prefects. And it has been doing the same, to great effect, for the past seven years.

The aim is to produce 'perfect' prefects. And the scheme that sees pupils training to a high standard helped the school to become the first secondary in Bolton and Bury to gain an Investor in People Award.

But for some reason this year the long running scheme has attracted attention internationally.

The school has been visited by a television crew from Germany and last night the head of year 11 and the head boy, Simon Sheddem, took part in a live broadcast on Radio Five Live.

And that comes after a week of constant filming, interviews and pictures with a host of media organisations.

Headteacher, Tony Buckley, said: "The phone has just never stopped. For some reason our training policy for prefects has caught the public's imagination. But the youngsters are loving it. They've not been overawed by the attention at all."

The prefects undergo the training after a strict selection process which ensures that they are all up to the job.

Firstly, pupils are invited to apply for the prefect positions. They then go through an interview with a panel of staff, including the headteacher. All the applicants receive results of the interview by post and the unsuccessful ones are debriefed on the reasons why they were not selected.

The successful youngsters then go through a rigorous period of training in assertiveness and "people skills."

External agencies employed over the years include the present trainers Dale Carnegie and Bolton and Bury TEC.

Mr Buckley explains: "The youngsters themselves get a great deal out of it. They feel more confident and able to ask fellow pupils to observe the rules of the school. A lot of its success is down to how the children speak to each other, particularly the prefects who have a position of authority."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.