A SCHEME is being launched in a secondary school in a bid to help boost children's energy and brain power.

Year seven pupils at Our Lady and St John Catholic Arts College in Blackburn, are the first secondary students in the county to try the "wake and shake" start to the day.

"Wake and shake" is a tried and tested approach to getting children energised and ready for the day in primary schools.

In almost all primaries in Blackburn and Darwen, and hundreds across the rest of Lancashire, youngsters get active by dancing to upbeat music for a few minutes before morning classes, and often again after lunch.

The initiative has been such a success that Blackburn with Darwen's schools sports co-ordinators (SSCs) are now introducing it in high schools.

SSCs are specialists in PE who work in schools, paritcularly in disadvantaged areas, to promote regular activity for young people.

Our Lady and St John was chosen as the first school to try out the scheme with its year sevens. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday last week, the whole year group - almost 200 11 and 12-year-olds - simultaneously got into the groove for 10 minutes before their first lesson, dancing en masse to tracks such as the Village People's YMCA.

The classes were all led by year seven activity leaders, who have been trained up by area's SSCs previously.

Charlotte Rigby, head of year seven at the North Road school, said: "It was really good, the children were all talking about it afterwards, telling other pupils what they'd been doing!

"We didn't know how they'd take to it, because only a few of them - the activity leaders - knew about it, but most of them are familiar with it from primary school.

"It was definitely effective in terms of energising them, they were certainly brighter than they normally are at registration, when they're normally still waking up and are quite quiet."

SSC for the school Jo Perry, said: "It went very well considering it was the first time. Now that we've started it off, we're hoping it will continue every week.

"If it's a success, the next step will be to roll it out across all secondary schools in the borough. We'll start with year seven pupils first, but we might look at it for older ones too, using funky music and perhaps even some MC-ing!"

Annette McNeil, healthy schools teacher advisor for Lancashire County Council, education authority for Burnley, Pendle, Rossendale, Hyndburn and Ribble Valley, said: "Wake Up and Shake Up is a great way of getting children energised at times of the day when they need to boost their circulation and concentration.

"Our School Sports Partnerships promote it in a large number of Lancashire primary schools and the children love it. They exercise to music for about 10 minutes at a time which counts towards their recommended one hour's physical activity a day."