FERNDALE Community Primary School celebrated their super human powers on Friday after topping the tables in the national Big Pedal competition.

The school finished the competition with 28,983 points, more than 2,000 points ahead of their nearest competitor in their category, much to the delight of staff and students.

Seven-year-old Bethany Rouse, who attends the school, said: “I feel really proud of our school and I feel we could do this more often and that our school’s improvement in cycling and scooting to school was really good.

“It’s really exciting that we won and it makes me feel happy that we got to dress up as superheroes because we don’t have to do as much work and it’s fun.”

Anthony Smith, who is in Year 6 at Ferndale, was also delighted with his school’s success.

He said: “It’s really good that we won, I am very happy about it.

“I really enjoyed coming into school on my bike and there haven’t been cars blocking the school gate.

“I think the competition really encouraged people to cycle or scoot in because they wanted to win.”

The school’s prize for pedalling their way to the top will be a visit from Team MGP, who will perform a scooter skills display as well as sessions teaching the youngsters what tricks they can do with their scooters.

Gary Evans, headteacher at Ferndale, said: “We have around 400 pupils and we went from around 20 or 30 cycling and scooting into school to 300 pupils.

“Attendance has improved as well because they wanted to get into school because of the competition.

“Parents have also been really on board as well, and some have cycled into school with their children before cycling on into work.

“There’s also been far fewer problems with traffic clogging up around the gates and it’s actually meant parents have managed to get into work earlier.

“All the staff and students are so excited.

“The challenge now is how to keep up the momentum and try and get everyone in school to be scooting or cycling in.”

The annual inter-schools competition run by transport charity Sustrans took place from March 3 to March 14, with hundreds of schools around the country taking part.

The competition has taken place every year since 2009 after research revealed that nearly half of all children want to be able to get to school by bike but only four per cent actually do.

Sharon Brentnall, Bike It Advisor for Sustrans, said: “This school has been amazing and has really worked very hard. There are quite a few roads in the area and it’s not a naturally easy school to scoot and cycle too, so the fact they have done so well is just brilliant.”

To find out more about the Big Pedal go to www.bigpedal.org.uk.