Things are looking good at Aldercar school. Last year, the Derbyshire comprehensive topped the GCSE league tables as the most improved state school in England when the number of pupils gaining at least five A*-C passes reached 62 per cent, a rise of 36 percentage points in four years. The previous year, headteacher Tony Cooper had been named best in the land by the Leadership Trust. And now the school is riding high in the fashion stakes, sporting a new uniform created with the help of local lad turned international fashion guru Sir Paul Smith.

The concepts of school uniform and style are usually mutually exclusive, but at Aldercar they have proved a winning combination. Out go black, acrylic V-neck jumpers and stripy ties, in come hooded fleeces and fitted, open-necked shirts. Best of all, this radical makeover came free - courtesy of joinedupdesignfor schools, a pilot scheme involving seven schools that aims to make innovative design a permanent feature of the nation’s education system (see box overleaf).

The unlikely collaboration had a low-key beginning when the school’s head of technology, Chris Bancroft, asked Year 10 pupils if they wanted to take part in a project about school uniforms. Not knowing what - or who - was involved, the eight volunteers drew up a questionnaire on what pupils liked and disliked about the clothes they wore to school, and put together a wish list for the ideal uniform.

Even though going without uniform is something of a treat at Aldercar - one day each term pupils pay for the privilege of wearing casual clothes to raise funds, and the school’s reward scheme offers a uniform-free day for good behaviour - fewer than one in 10 of them wanted to get rid of it altogether.

“A uniform gives the school an identity,” says Adam Grice, Aldercar’s head boy and one of only two boys in the group. “I wouldn’t like to be in a school without a uniform - you would have to choose what to wear every day. It wouldn’t feel like a school environment.”

Pupils wanted to keep the school colours of purple and black, but the tie, which was stifling in warm weather, and considered unfeminine by the girls, had to go. And they wanted a comfortable but durable alternative to the acrylic jumper. “You had to pull the sweaters over your head,” says Adam. “The girls didn’t like that because it messed up their hair.”

Chris Bancroft eventually revealed to the team that the designer of their new uniform would be none other than Nottingham-born designer to the trendy Sir Paul Smith. When they found out, the girls couldn’t believe it. “I haven’t got any of his clothes but my brother has,” says Michelle Lane. “When I told him, he said, ‘It’s not the real Paul Smith - it can’t be’.”

So they had to pinch themselves when, a few weeks later, they found themselves in the Paul Smith offices in London, explaining their ideas to the man himself and two of his designers. The teenagers’ communication skills were tested as they acted as mediators between their fellow pupils and the designers. They gave progress reports at school assemblies, and had to report back to the Paul Smith team that the suggested khaki, combat-style trousers simply weren’t up to the rough and tumble of playground football.

Although best known for his signature classic menswear with a twist, Paul Smith produces a range of casual clothing and has recently introduced women’s wear. But this was not the first time the company had designed utilitarian outfits - staff at the Tate Modern museum in London are kitted out in Paul Smith uniforms.

For the Paul Smith team - which, like all the designers involved in the joinedupdesignforschools scheme, gave its time and labour free - it was a learning experience, too. The competing demands of the designer’s production values and the school’s need for low-cost clothing did not always match up and the final version, manufactured by the school’s usual uniform suppliers, uses a cheaper material than that specified.

The new uniform will be introduced this month for Year 10, and the Year 7 intake will be able to buy it in September at a reasonably priced pound;18 for the sweat top, and pound;8 each for the shirts and blouses. Michelle Lane is pleased with the result. “Some people take their tie off as soon as they get out of the gate. But we are proud of being at this school and we are not trying to hide,” she says. And, as Adam Grice says: “We can’t moan about the uniform now because we have helped design it.”

Mr Bancroft says the only regret he has about the process is that he could not repeat the experience for everybody at the school. “As a design project it has been amazing,” he says. “Students have learned so much. They have worked with people they would normally never have a chance of meeting. It has opened their eyes.”

He was surprised by their traditional tastes - “This is an ex-mining town in a Labour supporting area, but I have never seen such conservative students,” he laughs - but impressed by the final design. “The girls look so much more mature having fashion shirts instead of boys’ collars - all the senior girls hated that. The boys’ uniform looks fantastic - so simple and clean. And there’ll be no more problems with the tie - they had all sorts of ploys for taking it off or wearing it short.” Significantly perhaps, the school’s mill wheel logo has been retained. “It identified them when they were walking round town and they wanted to be identified with the school.”

With an award-winning headteacher and results improving in leaps and bounds, you might expect Aldercar to be a popular school with pupils and parents. But the ultimate accolade for the new uniform came from a pupil at a nearby school, who was overheard saying he wished he could transfer to Aldercar “so I could wear the Paul Smith shirt to go clubbing in”.

Channel 4 is showing the second of a three-part series of programmes on joinedupdesignforschools today at 9.45am.The report Design for Learning costs pound;10 from Demos, tel: 020 7401 5330