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More than 1,000 pupils were taught to skip to a different beat across schools in South Cambridgeshire last week.

With inter-school competition and events still unable to take place, the School Games organisers across the county came up with the idea of a Skipping Week, as it could be done within Covid guidelines.

As the week coincided with National Skipping Day, on April 23, it was decided by South Cambs School Sport Partnership to set a challenge to see how many children and staff they could get skipping in one day.

With numbers still being counted, they have so far totalled more than 3,000 children from 17 schools skipping on the day, and it is hoped they will pass the 4,000 mark.

As part of the week, SkipBeatz and five-time world record holder Pete Thompson visited five schools across the district to deliver a whole school assembly to demonstrate some of his world records, talk about how he got into the sport and the impact it has had on his physical and mental health.

Thompson led workshops at Petersfield, The Meadow, Melbourn, Thriplow and Coton, with more than 1,000 children taught to skip during the week.

The intention is to build on the interest generated by the week by encouraging skipping at schools during lunchtimes and as regular movement breaks to try to get as many children as possible getting 60 minutes of physical activity a day.

South Cambs SSP are also hoping to establish an inter-school Crossover Cup competition, which would see schools put forward their best skippers to compete against other schools in challenges such as the most crossovers in a minute, most consecutive crossovers and a team challenge.