The government-funded project is a joint venture by the British Educational and Communications Technology Agency (Becta) and domain name registration company Nominet UK, which is setting up and maintaining the database of names.

It means all maintained and independent schools in England can have a logical address using their name and geographical location, followed by "sch.uk".

For example: "www.schoolname.location.sch.uk" for the website address and "enquiries@schoolname.location.sch.uk" for general inquiries via e-mail.

In defining the "location" part of the address, Nominet has worked via Becta with local education authorities to adopt the commonly-used name - so taking in familiar abbreviations such as "oxon" for Oxfordshire or "bucks" for Buckinghamshire.

The idea is to replace the tangle of existing possible names with ones that anyone can reasonably guess.

Confusion

Nominet says that the fees schools have had to pay until now to register domain names have varied, depending on the way they chose to do it. Some schools have been able to get a domain name with the education authority paying for the registration, as is the case in Wiltshire, for instance.

The naming is part of the grand scheme to get all schools connected

But the web is littered with well-intentioned but incomplete lists of school websites - many of them containing out-of-date links to obscure-sounding places.

It will make schools more like universities, which in the UK generally speaking have the domain name format "university name.ac.uk" - easily guessed.

Letters explaining the School Names on the Net offer went out to some 25,000 schools at the end of October. To register their allocated domain name, they have to return an application card by 5 November - or can do it online.

Becta's chief executive, Owen Lynch, called it "another major development in educational electronic communications."

Nominet UK says it expects the register of names to be available on its website by next February. Its operations director, Lesley Cowley, stressed that although the domain name was free, schools would still have to pay for their internet connection.

Unmemorable

Schools which already have domain names have the option to change to the new name, or to keep their current one. But the idea is likely to appeal to schools.

The information and communications technology co-ordinator at Nettlesworth Primary School near Durham, Kathryn Costello, built their award-winning website.

Its address through RM's school internet connection - atschool.eduweb.co.uk/nettsch - is hardly memorable, however.

"It was even longer than that before," Mrs Costello said.

She has jumped at the chance of having www.nettlesworth.durham.sch.uk - although the redirection is not yet functioning.

"When we enquired about a year ago from RM they were going to charge I think about £80 for a domain name," she said.