A MERSEYSIDE school picked out by multi-billionaire Bill Gates has been showing off its dramatic turnaround.

Bowring Community Sports College is the only British member of an exclusive network of Innovative Schools based in America, Hong Kong, Brazil, France and Germany.

Yesterday, a national conference there gave local authority leaders the chance to find out how educational attainment has improved since software giant Microsoft got involved.

The Huyton secondary school is claiming a remarkable improvement driven by “innovation in curriculum and teaching practices which are supported by ICT”.

Thanks to the partnership, children’s performance at Bowring has risen every year since 2001 with 61% of students now achieving five good GCSEs, up from 18% in 2001. This placed the school in the top 4% of the country for the Contextual Value Added measure in 2007. Bowring’s headteacher, Madeleine Cotson, said: “Everything is about learning. We talk about students rather than pupils. The emphasis is on making learning flexible, fluid and fun. This means students working in teams, developing the skills to learn independently and doing much more practical work and using technology to bring the world into their classroom.’’

She added: “One good example of this is using the internet to study a volcano, much more informative and fun than just a book.” Steve Beswick, education director at Microsoft, said: “The work that is happening at Bowring, and in Knowsley, is something we believe other schools can learn from.”