A PRIMARY school near Oswestry has joined a countrywide skipping challenge - and it is going really well. 

West Felton Primary School has signed up to the Skip2bfit challenge.

And in the week since it was launched pupils have become really enthusiastic of their two minutes of skipping each day.  

Headteacher Helen Hughes said: "We were looking for a challenge to increase the children's fitness, as there is a national drive for them to do more physical education (PE). 

"Our pupils love skipping, so this was something they were doing anyway.

"The school's PE co-ordinator then found John McCormack, an ex-heavy weight boxer, who introduced this scheme nationwide."

The aim of the challenge is that every day, children will pick up their ropes and do two minutes of skipping. 

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Mrs Hughes said that the ropes at the school have counters on them, which the school can have a look at and note down the scores.

She added: "The idea is that they are challenging their personal best every day, and are not going up against their peers.

"Alongside that we can use the data to enhance the maths curriculum, as we have a class spreadsheet of what their starting point was, and what they have improved too, with the difference between the two scores.

"We look at how many skips they are doing per second.

"So it's a nice way of integrating some useful maths into it for the children."

From nursery to year six, teachers and parents, everyone is joining in.

Mrs Hughes continued: "We have the West Felton Carnival in July, and we will have the parents skipping there, so we will see if the parents can beat their children's scores.

"Really everyone is involved in this challenge."

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As well as skipping, during his visit John talked to the children about healthy eating, a positive mindset and resilient attitude. 

He also gave all the students a pack of blueberries and a card for a smoothies recipe, which they then used to make at home.

"We have a platform that parents and the school use, it's like Facebook," Mrs Hughes said. "And that afteroon, after school, the parents uploaded pictures of the children making the blueberry smoothies."

The school hopes to keep up with this challenge every year and encourage more schools to join.