A Thornton Heath school has been praised for its use of information technology.

Winterbourne Junior Girls School in Winterbourne Road was awarded the Naacemark by professional body Naace, which formerly stood for the National Association of Advisors for Computers in Education.

Naace, set up in 1984, launched the awards to publicly recognise schools which use new technology to improve teaching of the curriculum.

Winterbourne Junior Girls was awarded the Naaccemark after investing in two computer suites and placing wireless laptops in every classroom.

The school, which received the accolade last Thursday, is now one of 271 across the country and seven in Croydon to hold the award.

Headteacher Janet Godfrey said the school was also using new software to help train staff and in the day-to-day management of the school.

She said in the future she hopes to install interactive white boards into classrooms and also update the machines in one of the computer suites.

Ofsted inspectors visited the school in April 2004 and found it to provide pupils with a good provision of information and communication technology thanks to the focus on those subjects.

Miss Godfrey, who has been the school's headteacher since September 2003, said: "We decided to invest the money in the technology because computers are the future."

She added: "The girls have reacted well to the technology, it helps their learning because every child is kept busy."