LEIGH EAZ's Arts & Writing venture appears destined for a long and prosperous future.

Ten schools are engaged in the 2003 celebration -- Walk Awhile in My Shoes -- which will be the centrepiece of the June annual Festival of Learning.

That event marks the climax of Leigh Education Action Zone's association with a project it created back in 2001, but the sustained achievement of the Arts & Writing experience seems assured.

Sacred Heart RC Primary is the latest school to grasp the initiative and 'go it alone'.

Pupils are producing a range of writing, enhanced by a stunning display of artwork, linked to the 2003 Leigh EAZ theme. And an exhibition, open to parents and visitors, will be held in the school after final classes in the week of June 16 - overlapping the official Zone festival, which runs from June 16-25.

Sacred Heart was one of nine schools in last year's Peace & Harmony festival of Arts & Writing -- and is determined to expand on that success.

Two schools from the first Arts & Writing project have already trodden the DIY path.

St Thomas CE has twice accepted the challenge, this year working again with artist Bryan Edmondson, who was the principal artist in the first festival, while Hindley Green Community Primary worked with ceramic artist Catrin Mostyn-Jones in 2002.

Leigh EAZ project director Alan Dutton is thrilled that schools who have been part of the Arts & Writing triumph are now taking the project on board as part of their annual curriculum -- particularly with the Zone now in its final year.

He said: "The Arts & Writing programme has been an outstanding accomplishment.

"Linking the idea of raising attainment in writing by using the stimulus of visiting artists is a concept first introduced in the Zone by Michelle Silcock.

"The project has gained national acclaim and I am delighted some of our EAZ schools are taking it forward as a sustainable project."