GOOD luck to headteacher David Triggs who is going back to basics to try to turn things around at a troubled North-East school.

Mr Triggs has the unenviable task of getting Middlebrough's Unity City Academy on an even keel - a facility that has received its third damning report from inspectors.

If anyone can improve schooling at the struggling centre, Mr Triggs can. He has a good track record of improving poor performing colleges.

We feel his back-to-basics proposal might just do the trick as he hopes it will lead to some pupils tasting success for the first time. One of the knock-on effects of success may be improved behaviour.

Another of his good ideas is that pupils must reach reasonable levels in English and maths aged 14 before moving on to GCSEs.

If they don't, the children will get basic literary classes so they can at least read by the time they leave at 16.

But it's not just about education. Mr Triggs is also looking out for his pupils. We are pleased to hear that he intends to make the much-criticised new buildings safer by replacing balconies - which hang over a precipitous drop on to concrete below - with classrooms and stairways.

He may also put back the academy's opening hours to give pupils a chance to get to school on time.

And talking of time, a group of children who were asked to look 15 years ahead and predict changes technology would bring to the classroom have come up with some fascinating suggestions.

They say that by 2020, school dinner ladies will be replaced by robots, the morning register will be done by scanning pupils retinas and live holograms will be helping to teach.

The survey of 1,000 seven to 16-year-olds shows that our children are embracing technology and its possibilities. More than a third even said they thought video-conferencing would do away with the need to go to school. Somehow, we don't think so.

Despite wishful thinking on the part of some students school would never be scrapped - it is still the place where children learn many of their social skills