STUDENTS at Harwich and Dovercourt High School have joined others across the country to take part in a marathon world record attempt.

The TCS Mini London Marathon encouraged schools to take part in the world’s biggest mini-marathon challenge.

As well as taking part in running or walking a distance of 2.6 miles, the school also signed up to a challenge to achieve a Guinness World Record for the most amount of pledges for a sports activity in one month.

Sophie Southgate, Key Stage 3 PE leader at the high school, said: “The mini-marathon is all about encouraging and inspiring young people of all ages and abilities to be physically active on a regular basis and it was wonderful to see so many students take part in the challenge.”

Participating students were asked to make a small donation in aid Melanoma Focus, chosen in recognition of PE teacher, Abbie Henshall, who recently completed the Brighton Marathon in support of the charity.

Abbie, who has now raised more than £1,800, said: “I enjoyed the half marathon and it was great to support the charity. So to see the students also doing something to support my fundraising was really touching.”

Before the end of May, all the pledges will be carefully counted and an announcement made whether the current record of 241,675 different pledges has been beaten.