Dazzling dance success for Thornton's Millfield High School

These dance pupils from Millfield won a Lancashire dance competition and are now in the national finals

Pupils at a high school in Thornton have won a county-wide dance competition to book a place in the national finals.

The Millfield High School youngsters, from Years Seven to Eleven, were representing Wyre and Fylde when they beat 13 rival teams in the Lancashire School Games Dance Finals at Preston’s Guild Hall.

Their success earned the school, in Belvedere Road, an elegant pink and silver trophy.

And now the youngsters will carry the banner for Lancashire in the UK Nationals, taking on school teams from all over England and Scotland.

The finals are to be held in Stoke on Wednesday, June 26.

Millfield’s project has been overseen by performing arts teachers Alice Kilmartin and Charlotte Longworth, who helped create dance routines good enough to see off rivals from right across the county.

Miss Kilmartin said: “We are so proud of all the students involved, they have all worked exceptionally hard to ensure the school is represented to the highest possible standard.

“We knew we had a good routine but to win at Lancashire level was really impressive. We looked at our rival dance teams and they were really strong so we knew we had to be at our best.”

The team had to come up with a routine based on the challenging theme of diversity, specifically focusing on Adam and Eve and whether they were responsible for the diversity we see today.

They spent around nine weeks perfecting the piece, making sure that they were technically up to scratch for the competition’s three dance specialist judges.

That meant scoring top marks with their pliés, jazz hands and glitter-infused costumes.

Miss Kilmartin added: “We have written to the parents of the eleven students to see if they would like us to arrange transport for them to go down to Stoke and see the finals.

“It’s a great achievement for the school and it will be nice if the girls have some support on the big day.”

Millfield began the competition by facing other schools from Wyre and Fylde at district level, earlier this year.

Next month they come up against the nation’s best school dance teams so the Millfield girls are still keeping in practice, ready for the biggest test of all.