IT has been a busy term at North Newton School with pupils picking up a number of accolades.

Brainy Jess Briggs, 11, from Huntspill managed to come second out of 30,000 students in the National Memory Championships.

Having excelled in online tests run by the Learning Skills Foundation, Jess earned herself a place in the national finals which took place at London Zoo.

Jess sat a number of further tests where the contestants would be given lots of data, whether it was about numbers, animals and words and managed to come second by just six points out of the 20 finalists.

"I was really pleased," Jess said. "I never expected to come second."

Meanwhile talented William and Megan earned themselves £50 each for their short story writing.

The competition was launched by south west author Huw Powell in conjunction with National Express and budding young authors were encouraged to write a short story about a journey.

William's story was about visiting a war memorial with his family while Megan wrote about a magical bus ride in which the children encountered Disneyland and King Henry VIII.

Their stories will now be on National Express's 'infotainment' screens on each coach as part of an online storybook.

Finally Callum Little, 8, and Cormac Pickford, 9, earned themselves highly commended awards in a Young Engineers project which will see their designs placed on display at Southampton University.

For the project pupils had to identify a problem and invent a solution, whether real or fictitious.

Callum came up with the idea of an app that freezes your phone as you cross a road, stopping the game you are playing, making sure you concentrate on crossing the road safely.

Meanwhile Cormac's invention was a booth at the beach which sprayed you with sun tan lotion.

The students were inspired after meeting engineers who visited the school and gave them interactive lessons about engineering.