YOUNGSTERS at Eastleigh's Alderman Quilley School are celebrating news that they had become unique in Hampshire.

For the Cherbourg Road school has become the county's first specialist engineering school in a move which head teacher Sue Ryder-Morgan says will put Alderman Quilley on the map.

Confirmation of the specialist school status award - which brings a £100,000 grant from the government and £126 per pupil over the next four years - was officially confirmed last week.

There are only a handful of specialist engineering schools in the country and Mrs Ryder-Morgan said Alderman Quilley had made its bid because the area it served was historically an engineering town and felt it would play a significant part in its future economic growth.

She added: "A good proportion of our youngsters choose to go straight into jobs with training at 16.

"We wanted to offer them a sensible vocational route into employment and also into training and higher education - you need people at all levels, not only workers but managers, designers and entrepreneurs."

It will not be a hard hats and spanners image at Alderman Quilley. The head teacher explained: "We will be looking at developing engineering in a very broad sense and ensuring that pupils are equipped with electronic engineering experience and an understanding of what engineering is and the need for it in this country.

"We want to give them the right skills in civil, sound, light and environmental engineering and an understanding that engineering underpins our daily lives."

For Mrs Ryder-Morgan news that the school has been granted specialist status means that she will leave Alderman Quilley at the end of this term - when she emigrates to Spain for family reasons - on a high note.

Now her successor, 38-year-old Richard Kelly, is relishing the challenge of taking the specialist school status forward and sees it as the icing on the cake following his appointment.

He said: "In the past engineering has had an image of dirty, greasy nuts and bolts, but for these students the jobs they will be going into haven't been created yet. Things are changing so rapidly and engineering is going to form a part of that. Mobile phones didn't exist 15 years ago, now everybody has got one."

Mr Kelly, who is moving to Eastleigh from his post as vice principal of Applemore Technology College on the Waterside, added: "I knew the bid was in and that was one of the things that attracted me to the job. This is recognition of excellence - schools don't get specialist status unless they are a centre of excellence."