A TEACHER and his star pupil have been named as teacher and student of the year.

Les Dobson, 60, and 16-year-old Danielle Taylor, from Sunnydale Comprehensive in Shildon, have both come out tops in the national awards hosted by the National Foundation for the Teaching of Entrepreneurship.

Mr Dobson, who came out of retirement to take up a post teaching entrepreneurship at the school, said he was over the moon at winning the title of UK's Entrepreneurship Teacher of the Year but the accolade was made even better after finding out that Danielle had been named the UK's Young Entrepreneur of 2003.

He said: "I wish I had another 40 students like her. I nominated her for the award because she had made the greatest improvement in self esteem, confidence, hard work and achievement.''

He said he was stunned that he had won the accolade. "My winning this title is all down to the students of Sunnydale School. It is their success and hard work that has made this possible.''

Mr Dobson's prize is a $3,000 scholarship to attend Columbia Business School in New York, where he will spend a week in June this year swapping innovative ideas. He will also travel to the States for the awards dinner.

Danielle has won $300 towards her future education after establishing herself as one of the key members of the Family Fotos team that was formed by her and three other pupils at the school as part of the Big Zipper Student Challenge.

Danielle and her friends narrowly missed winning success after attending the finals of the challenge in London.

She said: "This award means a lot. I did not realise that Mr Dobson had won as well until this morning."