PUPILS from Blackhorse Primary School took part in a torch relay to mark the start of the Olympic Games.
After a morning challenge for pupils to complete a combined 346 mile ‘run to Paris’ on their running track, a team then ran five miles from the school in Blackhorse Lane to pass the model Paris 2024 Olympic torch to the next school on the relay, in Kingswood.
Executive head teacher Simon Botten, who is also the school’s track team coach, said: “Whilst some schools chose to drop the torch off by car, Blackhorse chose to run the torch to its next school.
“For many children, five miles would be a challenging distance but Blackhorse, famed for creating more national and international runners than the rest of the county combined, had little difficulty completing the distance with teacher Miss Coode and parent and athletics coach Rob Pope.”
The Blackhorse children were greeted by a Year 6 guard of honour when they arrived at The Park Primary School.
The relay was organised by the CSET Sport Partnership, an outreach programme run by Mangotsfield Secondary School to support PE in local primary schools. The torch made its way around all the schools in the partnership to raise awareness of Olympic values.
Blackhorse pupils also showed a competitive edge in the classroom when they took part in a national mathematics competition.
More than 800 schools from all over the country competed against each other in a maths quiz which gives children 40 seconds to answer each question.
The first round included over 100 teams, with Blackhorse coming ninth – the only school from the Bristol area to qualify for the semi-finals, where they made the top 15 but narrowly missed out on a place in the final.
School maths leader Josh Denton-Collins said: “We aim to provide children with opportunities which take them out of their comfort zones, and this quiz allowed them to compete against some of the best mathematicians in the country.
“The children had a great time and will be back again next year to try for a place in the national final.”
Mr Botten added: “It was great to see the children having such fun completing problems which, frankly, I struggled to solve as fast as some of the team!”