GENERATIONS of families were taught the value of working together at a scrapheap challenge held in a Trowbridge primary school.

Pupils from Parochial Junior School were joined by their parents and grandparents on Saturday for the challenge, aimed at encouraging lifelong family learning.

Each family had to make a model cotton-reel tank, powered by an elastic band, and were allowed three attempts to fire the tank as close to a target as possible.

About 80 people turned up to the workshop, held between midday and 3pm.

Headteacher Jane Evans said: "It was great fun and I am sure everyone there found it educational and enjoyable.

"The groups had to modify their tanks to try and get them to move further and hopefully showed families the worth of working together."

The event was organised by The Learning Tree, a family learning project in Wiltshire, which takes a range of activity workshops, ranging from arts and crafts to science and technology, to primary schools and communities across the county.

The Learning Tree was started in 2000 at St Peter's Primary School, Chippenham, and is now funded by the North Wiltshire and Kennet Local Learning Partnership.

Mrs Evans said: "I think it is a very important subject and events like this will encourage more people to come into the school and participate in learning. A lot of people attended who would not normally get involved in school events and this is all widening the participation in learning.

"It also gave our school the chance to show people other things we can offer like our computer suite."

Representatives from the Local Education Authority also turned up to the event to talk about a new initiative called Bridge the Gap designed to encourage parents and children to work together.

Year 4 pupil Kieran Gould was the winner on Saturday and won free tickets to visit the @Bristol exhibition.