BRITAIN'S top woman javelin thrower, Kelly Morgan, returned to her old school at Durrington last week to help launch its bid for specialist sports college status.

Upper Avon School, where Kelly was a pupil between 1991 and 1998, is planning to submit its bid to the government for sports college recognition and funding this autumn.

And its cause was championed by the potential Olympics and World athletics championships gold medallist when she attended a highly polished presentation of the bid at Upper Avon last week on Tuesday.

Kelly, who will be competing in the world championships in Paris at the end of next month and in the Olympics in Greece next year, said it was fantastic that Upper Avon was aiming to expand its sports facilities and open them up to the community and other schools in the area.

"It will help dreamers realise their dreams and encourage more people to enjoy keeping fit and becoming healthier," she said.

She particularly hoped it would persuade what she described as the "PlayStation generation" that there is more to life than computer games.

Sports colleges are part of a government initiative to establish specialist schools.

To win special status, a school has to demonstrate it can deliver excellence and is prepared to share its expertise and facilities with a network of other schools, groups of local people and the community at large.

As part of its bid for sports college status, Upper Avon is promising to promote as wide a range as possible of sporting and keep-fit activities and to extend its existing sports hall to provide a larger multi-purpose area - mainly for aesthetic physical activities such as dance, yoga and aerobics.

It is also looking to raise standards and aspirations, encourage careers in sport, work in partnership with surrounding secondary, primary and pre-schools and open its doors to the public.

Headteacher Rowena Brookes said that Upper Avon, which has some 700 pupils aged 11-18, had an exciting future and was determined to become a sports college.

She said it would then open up to the whole community - becoming a school 18 hours a day and serving people aged 11-90.

"This is a school going places," she said.

Head of physical education Fran Ronan said the school would have to raise £50,000 to attract additional government funding, and she appealed to businesses and other private sponsors to help out.