A YOUNG girl's vision of the future has brought her school prosperity in the present.

Bury Grammar School pupil Abigail Don has won £3,100 after emerging as junior winner in a UK-wide competition run by Mercury Communications.

The school itself keeps the £3,000 while the remaining £100 will be used to buy eleven-year-old Abigail book tokens.

Criteria used in the competition for secondary schools was to predict a future development made possible by advances in telecommunications that could have significant effects on everyday life. Ideas could be conveyed using words, diagrams or drawings.

Abigail's class teacher, Mrs Gwenda Nuttall explained: "Our brief was to imagine pupils could link up by videophones.

"They had to decide who they wanted to talk to and what questions they would like to ask. At the same time, they were asked to design a futuristic classroom."

Abigail's imaginative project was about life in the year 2000 where people use videophones to communicate.

The pupil, who lives in Ringley Road, Whitefield, chose film director Stephen Spielberg as the person she would most like to have a chat with - especially about his favourite movies.

Her entry certainly impressed those who were judging the Mercury 2000 Schools Challenge and Abigail was chosen as the national winner in the junior category.

The competition was part of an educational information pack which provided some 15,000 UK primary and 5,000 secondary school teachers with materials, mapped to the National Curriculum, to encourage interest in, and understanding of information technology and science.

A delighted Abigail was presented with the £3,100 cheque at a ceremony at Bury Grammar School.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.