Children enjoy their first experience of secondary school at St Antony's Catholic College

The Urmston faith school welcomed more than 100 Year Four and Five children from five neighbouring primary schools to spend a day in their gymnasium with one of the highlights, a game of old fashioned 'dodge ball.'

St. Antony's learning support assistant Tom Derbyshire, who is in the final year of a degree course at Liverpool St. John Moores in sports development and physical education, said: “Dodge ball is almost a case of anything goes. There are some rules in that you are only allowed to aim at certain parts of the body but frankly we are quite relaxed about them.”

Tom, who wants to become a physical education teacher, added: “The balls are very soft and no one can get hurt but it is very frenetic and extremely high energy. It helps develop agility and hand eye coordination but above is just sheer and total fun.”

The children from St. Monica's, St. Hugh of Lincoln, English Martyrs, St. Alphonsus and St. Teresa's primary schools will enjoy a series of sports events at St. Antony's and later in the term will be divided into teams to play uni-hockey and in the summer will be introduced to cricket and rounders.

St. Antony's headteacher, Fiona Wright, said: “We want the young ones to enjoy their first experience of secondary school and what could be more fun than a game of dodge ball. Of course when they do eventually come here aged 11 there will be much more time for thinking and studying than ducking and diving.”