A PIONEERING teacher who helped children as young as four write blogs and make short films has been honoured at a national awards ceremony.

Dan Lea, of Highfield Road in Woodford Bridge, works at Gearies Infant School in Ilford. He won the Becta Award for Next Generation Learning at the 2009 Teaching Awards UK at the Theatre Royal Drury Lane last night (Sunday October 25).

The IT expert first discovered he had won the prestigious award when he was surprised at school by BBC presenter Christine Bleakley, who presented him with his golden trophy in front of dozens of excited pupils.

Dan, 33, said: “Ever since I won it's just been mad. The awards ceremony was fantastic. After it finished we all rushed back to the hotel to see the television show. They actually took some my speech out of the programme, which was probably a good thing!

“The blogging project began when we asked some of the seven and eight year-olds to pick a question they would like to explore. Some asked thing like 'how can I make my dog sit down?'

“But some got into some really deep stuff, like 'can we make cars run on things other than petrol?' and 'why do we carry on celebrating people's birthday's after they die?'

“We thought blogging would be a simple way of recording their learning journey. We got them to uploaded words as well as video and audio files, and then emailed the results to their parents and relatives.”

Dan has worked at the school for 11 years, having joined straight after finishing his studies, and paid tribute to the backing he had received.

He said: “It's such a fantastic school It's the kind of school where, if you come up with an idea that's a bit bizarre and can show how it will benefit the children, you'll get 100 per cent support.”

The award ceremony was attended by winning teachers and a host of celebrities, including journalist Jeremy Vine, comedian Lenny Henry, and film director Danny Boyle, and was televised on BBC One.