A TEAM of senior pupils from Beaconhurst School are celebrating after taking second place in the UK National Water Explorer Awards.

Joe Cunningham, Alex Noble, Elise Newall and Hannah Riddell beat off competition from more than 300 teams to take their place at the final in London.

They gave a presentation to judges about their efforts in encouraging the whole school to get involved with saving water over the past year.

Their raft of innovative measures included collecting water-saving pledges from their classmates and leading sessions with primary pupils on how to save water.

Biology teacher Jo Fraser is head of the school’s Eco Committee and travelled to the London final with the pupils.

She said: “We are delighted with how well the team did and with the programme offered by Water Explorers.

“It complements Beaconhurst’s school values and was an ideal way to give pupils ownership of their actions on water-related issues.

“The competitive element, introduced by a points system, added an extra dimension which the pupils embraced.”

Alex Noble, from the Beaconhurst team, said: “We’ve learnt that it’s really important to keep working on the world’s water issues and to help people around the world to tackle them.”

Water Explorers is a school and youth group-based environmental education project which aims to highlight the importance of water conservation on a global level.

It is delivered by UK charity Global Action Plan (GAP) and supported by the HSBC Water Programme.

It sets a range of water-based challenges for eight to 14-year-olds helping them understand how to reduce their own water footprint and help others to do the same.

Beaconhurst competed against 385 other teams from across the UK to gain their place in the final where they presented their project to a panel of expert judges from GAP and HSBC.

There were four schools in the final, held at Canary Wharf in London, and Beaconhurst took second place to the winning team from Corbridge Middle School in Northumberland.