IT was a night for record breakers at a prestigious swimming gala held at Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School.

The Blackburn school hosted the John Parry Relays at its pool on West Park Road where 18 independent schools from across the North and Midlands took part in the event.

The event, first held nearly 40 years ago as a memorial to the late John Parry, the Master in charge of swimming at Barnard Castle School. Schools from as far afield as Newcastle RGS and Nottingham High School travel to QEGS with squads of boys and girls for the annual competition.

Newcastle Royal Grammar broke senior boys freestyle & medley records on a night where the standard of swimming was of the highest order.

QEGS were represented in the Under 15 boys section who competed in the freestyle and medley relays. The team included Kieron Hartley, Christian Brown, Jack Swarbrick and Matthew Bennett.

All competing schools now go down to national event at Whitgift School in Croydon for the Bath Cup and Otter Relays hosted by the Otter Swimming Club in March - one of oldest competitions in existence where QEGS won the medley event in 1993.

Meanwhile, a talented QEGS' netball team are on carrying on from where they left off last year.

Last year, the school's Under 13s netball team won three trophies, including the Blackburn with Darwen knockout trophy and the Lancashire Schools Cup.

Now at Under 14s level, the QEGS girls are already county champions and have qualified for the regional finals, which will be held at Keswick in late January.

At the Lancashire Schools Cup at Fearns Community High School in Bacup, QEGS won all eight matches in the group stage with an aggregate score of 107-20. They then overcame Ribblesdale High School in the semi-final by 14-5 and in the final defeated local rivals Westholme School by 10-6.

Teacher Mrs Emma Kay said: "I was very proud of the girls and a lot to the onlookers said they were deserving winners.

"The girls put everything into a very strenuous series of matches and can now start preparing to represent the county in the regional finals where the top two teams will go through to qualify for the national finals in March."

The QEGS squad included Abi Bamford, Leah Barlow, Georgina Chatburn-Jones, Helen Duckworth, Verity Jones, Amber Pilling, Ellie Taylor, Georgina Turner and Emily Whiteside.