A maths teacher at an independent girls' school in Oxford is using the Web to spread good news around the world. A pupil at Oxford High School, in Belbroughton Road, has won a flying scholarship from the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Charlotte Morley, 17, has been selected to receive 15 hours of flight training.

Nicola Copeman, a maths teacher, is using the school's new CommuniGate Web site to publicise such nuggets of information.

Most school Web sites require specialist Web knowledge to build and maintain, which excludes less computer-literate teachers from actively participating in the site. With CommuniGate, all you need is an online PC, so Nicola is able to publish the latest competition news herself without needing help from experts.

Charlotte is not the only pupil at the school celebrating out-of-class success this week. Cressida Arkwright and Jessica Brunner both won signed copies of the latest Philip Pullman novel Northern Lights on Saturday. The 11-year-olds received their books from the author himself at Waterstones bookshop in Oxford, after submitting prize-winning reviews of an earlier Pullman novel.

Nicola sees the net as a useful way of keeping pupils and parents up to date with school news and events. "At the moment we read notices out during assembly and print a newsletter. If we post daily notices on the internet, we won't have to rely on the girls remembering information or taking the newsletter home to their parents."

Oliver Tulloch, the school's IT Technician, set up the CommuniGate site in less than ten minutes by following the simple step-by-step instructions. "It was really easy. We are redeveloping the school's main Web site at the moment, so it is good to have this free site to put information on," said Oliver, 23.

As well as a link from the main community groups listings of nearly 100 other sites, the school features in the CommuniGate schools and education section and on the homepage of This is Oxfordshire.

John Barlow from Badger Web Services, who is building the Oxford High School's main Web pages, welcomes these free links to the school's official site. "Anything that encourages people to visit the school site is good," he commented.

For more information about the school and the latest competition news, simply log on to the Oxford High School Web site at: http://www.communigate.co.uk/oxford/oxfordhighschool

All schools and colleges in Oxfordshire are entitled to build their own Web sites for free using this service. As well as email forwarding, links, and pictures, you can choose to have more interactive features such as a reader poll, a guestbook and a message board where readers can post comments or questions and participate in online discussions.

To find out more and start building a free Web site for your school, go to the CommuniGate homepage at http://www.communigate.co.uk/ oxford