A TEACHER born and raised in Lowton is playing a major part in ground-breaking work at a Hertfordshire school.

Sue Lawrence, 51, is part of a team helping to integrate severely physically handicapped children into her mainstream school -- Bushey Meads Comprehensive, in Hertfordshire.

She attended Lowton St Mary's Primary School, Culcheth High School and Newton Grammar where she was known as Sue Hughes, before leaving home to go to college, although her family still live in the area.

For the past 15 years Sue has worked as the special education needs co-ordinator at Bushey Meads. Twenty five of the 1,100 pupils at the comprehensive school are severely physically handicapped.

Sue said: "There are not many mainstream schools who do integrate children with severe physical impairments. We take about four physically handicapped children per year. Although new government legislation will force other schools to do the same."

The Disability Rights in Education Bill will oblige schools and local education authorities to provide places in mainstream schools for disabled pupils if they and their families want them.

This year for the first time schools will be under scrutiny for disability discrimination, from which they have previously been exempt.

Sue was featured in The Times Education Supplement talking about her role in the school which is on the Hertfordshire-London border.

Some pupils have physical disabilities such as cerebral palsy and muscular bifida that are not often seen in mainstream schools.

Sue said: " I do teach and I make sure the children with physical impairments are supported.

"To help them we have access ramps and lifts. I am not the only one who helps -- there are staff to explain the work to them, and to write for them. Some of the children are unable to speak."

She has always wanted to be a teacher and said she found her job to be extremely rewarding.

"It's wonderful to see these children working alongside their friends and being able to join in, and not being left sitting on the sidelines.

"The able-bodied pupils are not at all fazed by it and it is a part of life for them."

Sue's father Alec Hughes, of Beech Avenue, Lowton, is delighted with his daughter's work.

"She studied education at Nottingham University and then got an MA in psychology and history from Leicester.

"I'm very proud."

Sue is married with two children, Mark and Emily.