A GROUP of high school students won first place in a national language pop music video competition.

The group, from Castell Alun High School, wrote, performed and produced the video themselves.

In March this year the Institut Français du Royaume Uni in association with Francophonie UK invited UK secondary schools to submit a three minute short video or animated clip to accompany a song or rap in French.

The students of tutor group 8O at Castell Alun High School in Hope rose to the challenge with flying colours.

The school took the opportunity to run the entry as a cross-curricular project in French, Music and Dance lessons.

Over just a few weeks the students wrote the lyrics and practised their pronunciation in French classes, whilst composing the music and practising their singing and instrumental parts in music lessons. They then perfected their dance moves and filmed on location in many local villages.

The school entry, entitled ‘Notre Village Globale’ (Our global village) won first place for schools in Wales and was streamed on the organiser’s dedicated UK Youtube channel immediately.

To date the footage has had more than a thousand views.

Modern foreign languages teacher Mrs Alison Phillips, the project's organiser, was thrilled with the students’ success.

She said: “We are so proud of our exceptionally talented students.

"These wonderful, gifted young people inspired us and their enthusiasm underlined the importance of developing and pursuing more projects like this in our schools.”

All winning group members were equally delighted.

Antony Jackson added: “'I think that the idea of expressing our musical talent but also being able to show off our understanding of French and our ability to pronounce tricky words but also sing is amazing.

"Even if we didn't have a musical talent we were all involved doing things such as photography, dancing, organising and even lyric writing. This is a project everyone should try.”

Ben Thomas, a Castell Alun student in year 10, was put in charge of the production of the final digital package.

He said: “I really enjoyed the project and enhanced my editing skills while editing the video.

"Had I done a project like this when I was in year eight, I may well have pursued my language learning further.”