A KNOWLEDGE of Zulu has helped a Falmouth schoolboy come up with a "fantastic performance" in a national language competition.

Luke Smith in year five at St Francis School came fifth out of 2,500 children who entered the Eurotalk Junior Language Challenge. He had to compete against 35 other finalists from all over the country and had to answer questions on the Zulu language at the Olympia Two Exhibition Hall on November 5.

Luke was the top scorer in his group and in the final achieved an incredible fifth place.

"I was very pleased when I made it to the final and I also won first in my group," he said. "I went a little bit wrong at the beginning and I was in about 10th place but when it got to the memory part of the game everyone else started to go wrong and I built my way back up to fifth place. The whole experience was really good and we raised a massive £5,152 for charity and I had to help hold up a huge cheque. It was brilliant."

Head teacher Claire Fortey said Luke was a terrific ambassador for the school and they were all very proud of him.