Newark's junior park run sees 334 children participate

The latest series of a junior run has broken nationwide records.

Week six of the Newark junior park run saw more 334 children participate, the highest in the United Kingdom that week.

The tally was also the second highest attended junior parkrun ever.

The six-week-long event, which was organised by 20 volunteers, aimed to give school children the chance to enjoy running.

Among the 15 schools that entered the Sconce Hills-based run, Coddington Church of England Primary School led the way for participation levels and was awarded a trophy for its efforts.

“It is a great idea to help get children active and everybody has really taken to it,” said Matthew Evans, a sports coach at Coddington Primary School.

“We’re delighted that we won the competition. The interest at the school grew each week and children really enjoyed trying to beat their personal bests.”

A points system was calculated by the percentage of children running as this gave smaller schools a chance to win the event.

At Coddington, 112 children participated, running the course a total of 259 times.

Matthew said a quarter of Coddington’s children ran the 2km course, which gave the school a total of 58,202 points.

Chuter Ede finished second on 53,074 points, and Highfields were third with 23,853 points.