A VILLAGE primary school punched above its weight to win a new sports kit courtesy of The Northern Echo and Screentech.

Witton-le-Wear Primary School, near Bishop Auckland, won the Win a Sports Kit for Your Local Team competition by a landslide.

The 89-pupil school collected 3,566 tokens from the newspaper which was more than 1,000 more than any of the other 17 teams that entered.

School caretaker and volunteer sports coach Lynn Docherty, whose daughter Abbie, 11, is a pupil, was the driving force behind the school’s victory.

She said: “We were in desperate need of new kit, the old one was pretty tired but I actually threw it out by mistake so it was either win this competition or do a bungee jump to raise money to replace it.

“I love doing this sort of this and was so excited when we won.”

Jenn Brown, events and promotions manager, said the school now has £1,000- £500 from The Northern Echo and £500 from Screentech in Darlington, to buy whatever team kit and school caps it needs.

Head teacher Mark Stephenson said a range of sportswear, in a mixture of sizes, will be bought for pupils to wear when representing their school at various events such as athletics, football, netball, tag rugby and gymnastics festivals.

He said: “It was a fantastic effort by Lynn, the school is ran like a big family and this just shows that the whole community, parents, grandparents and friends have supported us.

“It will benefit lots of children and keep them motivated to do sports.”