Pupils and teachers at Hallam Primary School got dressed up as smuggling sea-farers to tell pirate stories, sing old sea shanties, and shiver their timbers with a wild woodland walk.

The event was to help the school celebrate winning a £10,000 grant from the Woolworths Kids First Playground Scheme.

The mini shipmates had to design their own playground to qualify for the grant - and the children presented their design as a pirate story, in which the school's headteacher, Joy Raban, was kidnapped by a gang of evil bucanneers.

The school's project co-ordinator, Wendy Roberts, said: "The children have been fantastic throughout the project. They have worked extremely hard."

The money has been spent on a new play area and the new equipment has made "a huge difference to the children's play", said Wendy.

Jodi Saul from Woolworths Kids First said the standard of entries was "incredible" but added the Hallam Primary effort was "head and shoulders above the others in the region".

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