NEWLY-installed double glazing may have saved a North-East school from being completely gutted by fire yesterday.

Several thousand pounds worth of damage was caused to St Anne's CE Primary School, Bishop Auckland, County Durham, by the blaze, which is thought to have been caused by an electrical fault.

The school's reception classroom was totally burned out and the two adjoining classrooms were severely smoke-logged.

But the damage could have been worse had it not been for the double glazed windows which were fitted four days earlier.

Headteacher Henry Jopling said: "If it hadn't been for the fact that we had that double glazing in, the fire would have spread to the whole school, but that contained it to the one classroom."

A neighbour alerted the fire brigade at about 11am when she smelled smoke coming from the school.

It took firefighters from Bishop Auckland about 40 minutes to bring the blaze under control and they spent more than three hours at the scene making the school safe.

Among equipment lost was computers, hundreds of books and a reading tower donated to the school by parents.

But the biggest loss is to schoolwork built up over more than 15 years by reception class teacher Mary Kell.

Mr Jopling said: "You try to be stoic about these things, but it's sickening really."

A fire brigade spokesman confirmed they were not treating the blaze as suspicious, adding: "Our initial findings are that it was an electrical fire from a computer."

Insurance assessors will be at the school today to work out the extent of the damage.

The school, built in Warwick Road in 1971, has 210 pupils. Mr Jopling said that children should stay off school today and tomorrow at least.