WOODRUSH High School has taken another step towards becoming a specialist technology college after submitting a bid for £50,000.

The status bid to the Department for Education and Skills (DfES) was sent on the deadline for applications on Friday.

If it is granted the technology college status, the school will get £500,000 from the Government.

"It went right down to the wire," said deputy headteacher Jonathan Baker.

"But it went really well and I'm really pleased. I must say a huge thank you for all the fantastic support we received from all our sponsors."

The bid will now go through a selection process at the DfES and the school will have to wait until May to hear whether it has reached the next stage, when all the plans will be assessed.

Mr Baker said: "It's like a job application. If we're selected, we'll go through to an interview stage where a team of assessors will be sent to us, look through our bid and see what's in it and what we want to put in our school.

"Almost 90 per cent of schools who get through to that stage are successful - but even so, we're not counting our chickens."

If the school does miss out this time, it can re-submit the application every six months.

If the school is successful, £150,000 would be spent on a capital project which would refurbish an area into an ICT space where children can design their projects on computer before making them.

The rest of the money will go on community projects which could mean running extra subjects or even sharing teaching expertise with other schools.

The school will hear if it has been successful in its bid in July.