Luton pupils make it to the final of CBBC's Top Class

Safiyya Ahmed, Thomas Browne, Michael Afful, Aneesh Thakkallapally and Tegan Springate from Chantry Primary Academy travelled to Glasgow for a week earlier in the year to appear on the children’s quiz show that also featured a teacher from the school being quizzed.

Top Class is a British children’s quiz show produced by ITV Studios for CBBC, it began in September 2016 and is hosted by Susan Calman.

Each series involves 16 teams of four Year 6 schoolchildren, each with a nominated teacher, answering questions mostly on the National Curriculum in a knockout format to determine “the UK’s smartest school”.

The team managed to get to the final, which aired on Sunday, December 22.

Mr Kelly said: “We didn’t know what to expect, but we managed to get all the way to the final.

“This was a pretty great achievement as the competition was open to all primary schools in Great Britain, so we faced, and beat, teams from Ireland, Wales and England before being beaten in the final.

“I was really proud of the kids getting to the final of a national competition.

“The opportunity came about when Safiyya, one of the children involved, had made me aware of CBBC accepting applications for the next series.

“I decided to apply for our team to take part and was really surprised when we received an email saying BBC would like to hold a live Skype interview/chat with myself and the children.

“This took place, and the children completed a practice round. It all went really well and next, the children had to sit a general knowledge test, which they all scored really highly on. We then had about a week’s wait, and I then received an email saying we’d been successful and would be appearing on the show.

“Both myself and the staff back at school were bursting with pride, although their success was completely well deserved.

"The children showed determination, resilience and great commitment to do so well and refused to give up at any point.”