YOUNGSTERS from Weyford Junior School in Bordon won a trip to the top of London’s BT Tower, where they hung out with television presenter Jake Humphrey.
The day trip saw 30 pupils enjoy the revolving floor with a bird’s eye view of London. The youngsters also witnessed the work behind the scenes at the tower and learned about broadband.
The pupils won the visit to the BT Tower as part of a BT scheme to extend the coverage of superfast fibre broadband.
They were given an insight into how BT is bringing superfast fibre broadband to homes and businesses.
Allison Jenkins, head of teaching and learning at Weyford Junior School in Washford Lane, said ahead of the visit: “Pupils and staff were thrilled to hear the news of their competition entry.
“The visit will clearly help to develop their understanding of this vital area of technology within such an amazing setting.”
Leli Sibanda, a pupil at Weyford Junior School, said: “This is a once-in-a lifetime opportunity. We’re all really excited.”
The competition, run by BT’s Community Fibre Partnerships scheme, was open to schools in England, Scotland and Wales.
Bill Murphy, BT’s managing director for next-generation access, said before the visit: “Congratulations go to Weyford Junior School. We hope they have a great day and enjoy the tremendous London sky-line views from the BT Tower.
“High-speed fibre broadband takes learning one step further in bringing learning to life at school and at home.
“We would encourage any schools with less than 24Mbps internet speeds to get in touch to see if they are in any high-speed fibre broadband plans. If they’re not, our Community Fibre Partnerships team can help them look at options available.”
The scheme has a £2m fund for distributing grants to community fibre partnerships. Eligible communities can apply for match funding of up to £20,000 towards the cost of a new superfast fibre network as long as the technology is capable of serving the local school.
More than 200 communities across the country have so far signed up to a co-funded Community Fibre Partnership, delivered by Openreach, BT’s local network business, with many now enjoying superfast broadband.
The availability of these new grants will encourage even more communities to work with Openreach on bringing high-speed connectivity to their town or village.
Humphrey is best known for presenting BBC Sport’s coverage of Formula One.
His first work for the BBC was for children’s channel CBBC, before becoming the youngest ever host of its football shows Football Focus, Match Of The Day and Final Score.
He has guest presented non-sports programmes such as The One Show, and This Morning for ITV.