A COUNTY Durham school has been getting its pupils excited about reading after installing a book vending machine.

The machine has been specially adapted for Brandon Primary School so pupils can use gold tokens, handed out by teachers, to get the books out.

Headteacher Judith Hodgson said excitement had been mounting among pupils as the machine had arrived, but had been kept a secret, three weeks ago but was only unveiled this week.

She said: "Everyone is really excited about it.

"I saw the idea on Twitter from someone in Asia and I wanted it for us.

"Reading is something that we are really trying to push at the moment.

"We want the youngest children to take part and we want to reward any children who are doing good things with reading.

"They don't have to be the best readers but we're looking for children who have gone above and beyond."

Sarah Forster, from Sunderland-based North East Vending, which supplied the machine, said it was the first time the company had been approached for something to dispense books.

She said: "I've got daughters so I knew straight away where Mrs Hodgson was coming from.

"It was quite easy to do in the end. From our point of view its brilliant."

The school has been given £150 by Vision for Education which has been used to buy new books to keep the vending machine well stocked.