BLACKBURN company is at the forefront of a classroom revolution that is changing the face of teaching in thousands of schools throughout the country.

Promethean has pioneered the development of interactive white-boards which are quickly replacing traditional blackboards in schools, colleges and training centres,

Its ACTIVboard system is already the best-seller in Europe and he company is aiming for the world number two spot by the end of the year.

Amazingly, Promethean's world-class status has been achieved in less than five years. The company - part of Tony Cann's high technology group TDS - was established in 1997 and has seen turnover double in each of the past four years.

Managing director Stephen Jury said annual turnover had now reached £10million, which had kept the company in the Deloitte and Touche Fast 50 list for the fastest-growing technology companies in the North West for the second year in succession.

He believes the ACTIVboard has succeeded because the company has fostered a partnership approach with teachers and other training professionals to fully exploit its potential for improved learning opportunities.

"We deliberately set out not just to sell boxes," he said. "We want to enhance the teaching and learning experience to help improve educational standards. Our success is not just built on sales and marketing, but on our record of making a difference in the classroom."

The company employs teaching professionals as part of its product planning team who also work on customised multimedia lessons and training for the men and women at the "chalk face".

Mr Jury is particularly proud that ACTIVboard was voted by teachers themselves as the best technology product in both the primary and secondary sections of the BETT awards.

The ACTIVboard is effectively a computer and a blackboard rolled into one. It is made up of an electronic white-board, fixed to the classroom wall, with a ceiling-mounted projector linked in to a computer.

The award-winning system allows teachers to incorporate into lessons film clips, animations, graphs, charts, CD ROMs videos and material downloaded from the internet or scanned in from existing resources.

Teachers control the lessons from either an electronic pen or from a remote console. Units are also available for pupils who can interact with the work in progress.

Mr Jury said the company had also produced a complementary ACTIVision system, which introduced high quality video-conferencing into the classroom.

Among other new developments is the launch of a version compatible with the latest Apple Mac operating system.

Promethean is the undisputed market leader in the UK, with more than 5,000 systems installed at schools and colleges. Europe is the next big strategic challenge and the company already exports around five per cent of its production.

Offices have been opened in Essen in Germany and in Paris to spearhead the international sales drive and the company's own website is already tri-lingual.

Rossendale-born Mr Jury is no stranger to the learning environment.

He was part of the management team at the East Lancashire Training and Enterprise Council, in charge of first enterprise and then youth training. He left Lancashire to take up the post of chief executive of Shropshire TEC and returned to take up the managing director's role at Promethean.

"It has been a very exciting and stimulating four years," he said. "From a management point of view, we have to reinvent ourselves every year to face up to the challenges poised by continuing growth. We are very supportive of our employees' development and we try to grow from within the company wherever possible.

"It is exciting to have a product that people really want and its users feel they are being helped to do good things. All in all, we have a team which enjoys what it is doing."