PUPILS at Ferryhill Station Primary School are hoping to be in the running for a £500 prize after collecting more than 1,000 copies of the Yellow Pages.

Sedgefield Borough Council launched the competition last month as part of a recycling campaign.

The school which collects most copies of the directory, which is being replaced by a new edition, per head of pupil will win the prize.

As Ferryhill Station only has 104 pupils, headteacher Val Jago feels they must be in with a chance.

She said: "I explained all this to the pupils and Ferryhill Station is a very good community with a lot of people who are very supportive of the school, whether they've got children here or not. Our classroom assistants got really keen on the idea and they started to ring round hotels, because they have a Yellow Pages in every room."

The directories have flooded in from as far away as Teesside and Durham, one has even come from Hull, and Mrs Jago reckons they now have about 1,050 copies.

As part of the competition, an artist has been in school to make papier-mache models of the Cowardly Lion and Munchkins from the Wizard of Oz out of the books.

The competition ends on Monday, February 19, when the council will be collecting the directories.

A spokesman for Sedgefield Borough Council said: "It's going very well, better than all our expectations."