A TEAM of three Year 8 students from a school in Selby fought off tough competition from hundreds of entries across the country to win a national schools award and £1,500.

Youngsters from The Read School were the overall winners in the Yorkshire & Humber region in Shell’s national schools’ science competition, The Bright Ideas Challenge. The competition, now in its second year, is part of Shell’s on-going commitment to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers.

The winning team’s ‘bright idea’ of creating vertical skyscraper farms to energy efficiently cater for residents’ food needs in future cities has won them £1,500 to ‘super-size’ the STEM learning experience at their school as well as a tablet computer for each team member.

The judges were impressed by the team’s creative thinking and by their sound scientific research.

Teacher Liz Jackson said: “The win has meant everything to us.”