They made an Olympic effort to successfully smash a world record.
More than 3,000 schoolchildren gathered in Ossett town centre in a bid to beat the record for the number of people making a formation of the five Olympic rings.
And the event was hailed a huge success as youngsters from nine schools in the Ossett area descended on the town centre precinct.
They easily beat the previous record of around 2,000.
Huge crowds gathered to watch the brightly coloured spectacle as children – dressed in red, yellow, blue, black, and green T shirts and caps – hit their marks to depict the coloured rings, each one 12m in diameter.
A helicopter hovered overhead to film the event as video evidence will be used to verify the Guinness World Record attempt.
Earlier this year, Gawthorpe Academy deputy principal Paula Gill met with heads of schools in the Ossett Trust group of schools to discuss staging an event which would provide youngsters’ with lasting memories of the London 2012 Olympics.
Mrs Gill spoke about the meeting with daughter Danielle Sidebottom, who is working as a teaching assistant at Gawthorpe Academy while studying for a degree in play work.
Danielle came up with the idea for the record breaking attempt and started planning the big event.
Danielle, 24, said: “We had practised with individual schools to form one ring, but we had never done it all together before the day itself.
“I’ve had sleepless nights thinking ‘what if it goes wrong?’ But it couldn’t have gone any better. We all sang the Olympic 2012 theme song. It was brilliant and all the kids really enjoyed it.
She added: “I would like thank everyone who was involved. All the schools and the head teachers went with the idea. It must have been a daunting prospect getting hundreds of children here.”
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