A 14-YEAR-OLD Darlington student is jumping for joy after breaking a championship record.

Phillip Collins, from Carmel RC Technology College, brought the Darlington Schools athletic championships' arena to a standstill when he broke the championship record in the high jump by 27cm to the old mark - finishing with 1.92m.

He is now ranked the number one high jumper in the UK for his age and ranked tenth on the all-time list.

"I'm really pleased with the record. I started doing the high jump when I was in year seven," said Phillip.

"You don't have to be tall to be good at it. It's really the technique you use over the bar and the arching of your back. I use the Fosbury Flop technique.

"In the future I would love to go to the Olympics."

Carmel pupils also won the boys and girls team, the years seven, eight, nine and ten shields, eight relays and the individual 100m cup, won by Jonathan Vinton.

They took 17 cups and shields out of a possible 20, including the George Clarke Cup as overall winners for the 15th consecutive year. The girls won the county under-14 multi-events championship.

On Saturday, in the national school cup final at Gateshead, the school came 11th in the intermediate boys and 12th in the intermediate girls.

PE teacher Simon Hannaford said: "They have all worked so hard. Since Easter they've been practising at lunch times and after school. Every year they just get better and better."

This weekend, Phillip will compete with Daniel Ghundoo in the 80m hurdles and Joshua Hardy in the shot putt at the English schools' championship.