IT TAKES all sports at St Paul's CE Primary School - thirteen of them in fact!

For that is how many sports are on offer at the Blackburn school which has recently been awarded the Government-backed Activemark.

Now sports-mad pupils at the school in Feniscowles can choose from a wide range of sports from judo to cricket and football to rounders.

Other sports on offer are tag rugby, dance, netball, hockey, basketball, gymnastics, golf, rounders and futsal.

As well as PE lessons, extra curricular activities and after-school clubs, the school has also appointed play ground leaders to help organise break-time and dinner time activities.

PE co-ordinator Mark Fletcher, said: "The reward reflects the commitment the school has to PE and school sport and underlines how many pupils we have participating in physical activities during or out of school hours."

Mr Fletcher, who worked on the Activemark scheme with former deputy headteacher Jo Rushton, said the wide range of sports has helped to encourage more pupils to get actively involved in keeping fit.

He said: "We had to work hard to achieve the Activemark but it was well worth it in the end because it all goes towards helping the children.

"We purposesly set out to offer a wide range of sports because there are a lot of pupils who might not be interested in the so called more popular sports such as football and cricket.

"It means we are getting a lot of pupils taking part in such sports as judo, golf and dance which can only be a good thing."

Mr Fletcher added: "But it is not all about competitive sports as our play time leaders scheme proves. It means that during the dinner breaks pupils can take part in such activities as skipping to bouncing around on a space hopper as well as a range of bat and ball sports."

The initial aim of Activemark was to get 75 per cent of all pupils involved in some sporting activity by 2008. However, that has since risen to 90 per cent.

St Paul's were awarded the Activemark after achieving all of the criteria that included 90 per cent of all pupils taking part in at least two hours of PE and sport, holding a sports day and a percentage of pupils taking part inter-school competitive sport and participating in sports clubs linked to schools or school school partnership.

St Paul's has a school sports partnership with St Bede's College of Sport for which it is also a feeder school.

Mr Fletcher added: "We have worked very closely with staff at St Bede's who have played an important part in helping us to provide sport."

St Paul's is currently working towards the Healthy School initiative and also already gained the activity part of the programme.