Primary school pupils across Bradford have been urged to swap the computer games for a range of activities including ballroom dancing and gymnastics as part of an innovative new scheme with a high school.

Tong High School’s Primary Partnership initiative involves pupils from 18 primary schools across the district taking part in a number of events and projects which aim to broaden their experiences and teach them about never giving up.

On Tuesday, 120 pupils from three primary schools took part in a ballroom dancing competition, hosted by Tong High School’s Year Seven ambassadors.

The initiative however has also seen primary school pupils between the age of seven and 11 use the school’s video and editing suite to create a television programme, with the help of Tong’s own students, and the youngsters have also taken part in sport competitions.

The initiative has also seen primary schools host students and teachers from schools in Uganda and Nigeria as part of a Connecting Classrooms initiative, which also saw students from Tong visit the schools in Africa.

Jane Girt, Tong High School’s deputy headteacher, who has been leading the initiative, said: “The Primary Partnerships project aims to support the development and learning of younger pupils in the area by giving them the opportunity to come into our school and try their hand at activities they wouldn’t usually be able to do.

“We are lucky enough to have some fantastic facilities here at Tong High School, such as our Love2Learn centre and video-editing suite and we want to be able to share these with the wider community.”

The school’s Love2Learn research and media hub has been opened up to primary schools, who have been able to carry out research tasks using modern technologies including iPads and Kindles.

Meanwhile, alongside some of the more unusual activities, the partnership has seen more than 40 sixth formers from Tong High School become trained in guided reading and regularly visit the primary schools to support the development of younger pupils.

Pupils from Ryecroft Primary School, in Kesteven Close, Holme Wood, were among those taking part in the ballroom dancing competition on Tuesday.

Ryecroft’s headteacher Jayne Clarke said the initiative had exposed pupils to a range of experiences which had helped to build up their confidence and express themselves more easily.

She said: “We are part of their sports partnership, so we benefit, for example, from their PE staff working with us and we have also got our own dedicated sports coach.

“Through the competition opportunities that the children have had, it raises their experience, self-esteem and self-confidence because each time they go to one of the special events they learn about working with other people and values such as friendship and respect at the same time as striving for excellence.”

Mrs Clarke said working with Tong’s videoing suite had also spurred the children on to become involved in a consultations with what was going to happen in Holme Wood in connection with the Local Development Framework.

She said the videos made showed the pupils’ strongly held views and opinions they were able to get across.

She said: “One of the reasons they were able to communicate so effectively was that they were using the videoing suite and all the technology to create a film and create images of themselves that they could then put across their arguments.

“So they had learned all about their home and their estate and how to become effective citizens.

“But then they have also learned you have to appreciate what others think and how to let them understand really clearly your thoughts and views.

“Of course media and technology excites children, it gives them the licence to think about the technology rather than being self-conscious and worrying.”

Other schools taking part in the project include Fearnville Primary School, St John’s C of E Primary School, Lower Fields Primary School, Knowleswood Primary School, Carrwood Primary School and Newall Park Primary School.

Mrs Clarke also said the project had given the pupils the opportunity work with and compete against pupils from across the district.

She said: “That’s one of the fantastic things about working in partnership. For example at the sports events, the children met children from other schools, other cultures and other economic backgrounds, but there’s something that ties them together, and that’s the respect they showed each other during the competitions.

“One of the things we work a lot on in schools is having the right attitude to learning – can you persevere and can you contribute with other people.

“If you can do that then your learning is going to be far more effective than learning in isolation.

“Working with respect, working collaboratively, persevering, never giving up and seeing things through makes you a much better learner and therefore you want to be part of an organisation that has such high values.”