SCHOOL children in Bramley have won a climate change drama competition at the atomic weapons plant.

Children from five primary schools presented their own 10-minute plays about climate change in front of judges as part of an Atomic Weapons Establishment’s (AWE) Schools’ Liaison programme.

But it was a class from Bramley Primary School that won with a piece that included dance.

Jenny Rushton, Year 4 teacher at the school, in Bramley Lane, Bramley, said: “The children are beside themselves, they did fantastically well. We were delighted.

“We went on first at the William Penney Theatre. It was nail-biting!”

The event was organised in celebration of the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species and the other schools taking part were The Cedars School, in Aldermaston, The Priory Primary School from Tadley, North Waltham Primary School, and Southlake Primary School, in Reading.

The schools were shortlisted to a final after submitting a script in July.

Mrs Rushton said: “The whole class worked on the script and the drama together so it was everybody’s work and everybody performed.”

She added that in the play the 23 children went into the future where several species from today are extinct, and they travelled back in time to tell the present what had happened.

She said: “We focused on coral and they performed a dance to show the damage to coral, and we looked at land clearance and the effects it is having on lowland gorillas, and they did a mechanic dance for that.”

The children have won a trip to the Darwin Centre at the Natural History Museum in London early next year as well as a gold dodo statue, which was made at AWE.

Lindsey Appleton, chairman of AWE’s Schools Liaison scheme, said: “It was an incredibly hard decision for the judges.

“I think that it proves pupils are really aware of climate change, the impact it is having, and they want to do something about it – it’s their future.”