SHERSTON School chess team has qualified for the final of the UK Chess Challenge at Keele University in Stoke on Trent, in July .

All six members of the team made it through to the under 11 and under 12 finals out of 35 places in a qualifying tournament of Wiltshire schools in Swindon last month, where there were 250 other competitors.

It is an unprecedented success for the school and for headteacher Nicholas Bowditch who started the chess club at the school when he arrived ten years ago.

He said children have competed in the final in the past, but this is the greatest success for the school to date.

He said he was very pleased with the result.

"The children have done really well. We run a chess club that meets every Friday and we have very supportive parents who take their children down to the club," he said.

"Chess is something we encourage. Children of all abilities can play it.

"It is good for thinking, logic and attention."

Pat Campaigne, the mother of one of the finalists, said she was very proud of her son, Jack and the rest of the team.

She said: "For a village school to have so many children in the final is quite fantastic and it is also quite an achievement for Sherston."

The children who qualified are: Oliver Clifton, Harry Pettit, Alastair Todd, Jacob Calland, Euan Littlejohn and Jack Campaigne.