A GROUP of secondary school pupils from Billingham are preparing to lead out 25 of the teams at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games later this month.
Class 8C from St Michael's RC Comprehensive School have been given the opportunity to take part in the event after designing a series of award-winning masks for the Guardian Media Group's Citizenship Competition (GMG).
The masks will be displayed at Sportcity, Manchester, for the duration of the games. They were created after GMG invited 11-16-year-olds across the country to express their views on what it means to be a British citizen in 21st Century multi-cultural Britain.
The students designed the masks to represent multiple harmonious identities, based on culture, race and religion.
The students will be officially congratulated by at an awards ceremony in Manchester, from July 23 to 25.
Tony Maxwell, headteacher at the school, said: "It's a tremendous honour for our students to have this chance and I feel very proud of the whole class. They showed lots of imagination in pulling together their entry."
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