A GROUP of Darlington schoolchildren have helped launch a project to help save one of the nation's most endangered animals.

The children from Harrowgate Hill Junior School are working with adult members of their families to create nest boxes for harvest mice.

It is believed to be the first time such boxes have been built for the creatures, which have disappeared from most of the English countryside, but were reintroduced to Teesside last summer.

The box-building project, led by Harrowgate Hill Junior School teacher Graham Temby, and Robin Laycock, a lecturer from Bishop Auckland College, involves 16 children, who bring a parent, grandparent or other adult member of their family to the weekly workshop sessions at the school.

They have started by building bird boxes then, as the course proceeds, will move on to design and construct boxes for the harvest mice.

Mr Temby, who heads the school's environmental projects, said the programme involved science, design, technology and maths and was being run as part of the Family Learning Initiative, a scheme to encourage learning in adults as well as children.

Once completed, the boxes will be moved to sites at Cowpen Bewley and Portrack Marsh on Teesside, where mice are being released as part of a reintroduction programme being co-ordinated by Ian Bond, from Darlington, a countryside warden with Stockton council.

Mr Temby said: "As far as I'm aware, nest boxes for harvest mice have never really been tried before.

"The only attempt that I know of is when Wimbledon donated a load of tennis balls and they were set up on posts.

"It wasn't terribly successful. This is a first and it would be lovely if the harvest mice bred in our boxes."

Mr Laycock said: "The idea of this project is that the children and adults work and learn together."

Pupil Leanne Pratt, 10, who is taking part with grandfather Eric Griffiths, both from the Harrowgate Hill area, said: "I am enjoying it and it is good to work with my grandad."

Mr Griffiths, 65, a former fitter, said: "I am enjoying working within the group. It is something extremely worthwhile."

The group will visit Portrack Marsh on Sunday to view the area where their boxes will be erected.