A JUNIOR school has made history by becoming the first school in England to teach all its pupils using brain-training computer games.

For the past month, Oakdale Junior school in South Woodford has been supplementing its pupils' usual curriculum with 20 minutes a day on hand-held consoles which test their mental agility.

The game of choice is Dr Kawashima's Brain Training - a mix of maths puzzles, sudoku and logic games, and staff have been recording their scores each time to see if the games do have an impact.

"It's quite amazing the effect it's had," said year six teacher Dawn Hallybone.

"All their brain levels have improved in the last few weeks, and just listen how they're working in complete silence."

The game keeps tabs on their score, before calculating a daily "brain age".

The lower the score the better, with an older age indicating a less alert, slower mind.

While the class was engrossed, I asked Dawn whether I could have a go. She handed me her console which, after a few minutes, informed me that I had a brain age of 45, almost double my real age.

Surely a bunch of ten and 11 year olds couldn't be better at maths than me?

"Who's got less than 45?" asked Ms Hallybone. More than half the children's hands shot up.

Nevertheless, I was keen to see if the high scores would actually translate to real-life maths problems.

"What's seven times eight?" I asked one table.

"Fifty-six," they shouted in unison.

That showed me.

But not only are the children learning - they really are enjoying it too.

"I like it because it's doesn't really seem like work" said 11-year-old Steven Kwete.

"It's good fun I really like it."

Gregory Dillion, 11, started with a "brain age" of 49, which has since dropped to just 30.

"It gets you really competitive with yourself. I hope to get down to 25 next week," he said.

The machines were introduced by Redbridge Council which bought 34 Nintendo DS handheld consoles for use in the borough's schools as part of a pioneering new trial.

Anthony Evans, part of the council's IT team, helped come up with the idea.

He said: "We were quite cynical initially but also quite enthusiastic to give it a go. We never expected the Oakdale pupils to do this well."

Mr Evans added that Oakdale's trial would continue until the summer, after which the machines would be passed on to another school, with the council "closely monitoring" what happens.