Pupils at a York school are starring on a new educational TV channel, thanks to an unusual addition to the tools of the teaching trade, as HAYDN LEWIS found out.

FINDING ways to banish bad behaviour has been a major goal for teachers since schooling began.

Now the head teacher at one York primary thinks she might finally have found the answer - juggling.

Carole Farrar, head at New Earswick Primary School, has inspired staff and pupils to take up juggling, transforming school life.

Her technique has been such a success that the 250-pupil school was used to launch a new TV channel aimed at teachers across the country called Teachers' TV.

The juggling-germ started out with Miss Farrar trying to come up with new and exciting ways to liven up school assemblies.

She used juggling to demonstrate to her captive audience the importance of learning new skills - and as a result she says teacher-student relationships have improved, detentions have plummeted and pupils have taken a more active role in their education.

Miss Farrar said: "It just took off, and at lunchtime and playtime the playground was full of children juggling instead of bickering.

"It was just amazing how it caught the kids' imagination. The local shop had a run on juggling balls and they were wondering why."

Supply teacher Andy Peacock, who had been juggling in his spare time for about 16 years, came to the aid of novice juggler Miss Farrar, teaching her ways to improve her juggling skills.

He was having difficulty getting through to one boy in particular, to the point that the youngster was doing his work in another classroom.

He went on to engage with the boy and some of the more rebellious members of his class, bringing them back in to the fold through teaching them juggling.

Mr Peacock said: "Juggling is totally addictive - you set yourself a target of juggling so many balls and increase the number as you gain in confidence. It's a skill for life, and through it we were able to illustrate to the children what learning is all about."

Ten-year-olds Luke Bamber, Jack Stevenson, Jamie Thompson and Ellie Driscoll were among the youngsters hooked by the craze.

Luke, who used to get in to scrapes with mates playing football in the playground, said: "I started juggling and got better and better. I can now do it with four balls for a bit. It's good to do at playtime when you're bored.

"Sometimes when I played football I'd get into trouble, but you don't get in to trouble with juggling."

Jack said: "You can't really stop doing it because there's more and more to learn.

"When you are trying to learn a new trick you have to concentrate and you can pass the balls to each other."

Juggling took off more with boys than girls at the school. Ellie said although she didn't know why that was, but girls could be just as good at it.

Miss Farrar now wants the school to learn to play musical instruments - with all the staff already learning to play the recorder. Her plan is to form a 250-piece band.

Teachers' TV is on Sky channel 686 and Freeview channel 47.

Updated: 09:02 Wednesday, February 16, 2005