PHP & Frames?

I'm trying to pass vars into a php (html) file that uses FRAMES -- top, main and bottom. The TOP frame has my menu items. The MAIN frame will show the pages, and the BOTTOM frame will have my footer stuff -- Now, when I click on a menu item in the TOP frame I want the TOP and MAIN frames to update. My frame page is named: index.php and it links to head.php (goes in TOP frame), body.php (goes in MAIN frame), and footer.php (goes in BOTTOM frame.) So, what I tried (seems logical enough) is to simply call the INDEX.PHP file with some vars attached, like so <a href=http://127.0.0.1/index.php?s=1 target=_top>Load Page</a> Within the Index.php Frames Page (which the var gets passed to) the other pages don't seem to recognize the var and simply do nothing -- For example -- in the head.php file I have it update an image if s=1, and in the body.php file, if s=1 a certain page loads -- this all works fine without frames. Any suggestions -- I want to use frames if I can, and avoid Java. Thanks. Jason