A GUISBOROUGH school was subject to earthquake-like tremours at 11amlast Friday when more than 1,400 pupils jumped simultaneously for one minute in a scientific experiment.

Similar mass jumps were staged at hundreds of other schools to create a large tremour which was measured on scientific equipment using the Richter scale. The event marked the start of Science Year.

Pupils, teachers, dinner ladies and secretaries at Laurence Jackson school were asked to stop working and jump for one minute.

Science teacher Mr Fred Gibbon, said: "It went magnificently. We rang the school bell at 11am and everybody abandoned their lessons. I was down in the office at the time and was jumping up and down - so were the secretaries!

"All the jumping had a really dramatic effect. You could feel the vibrations in the classrooms. It was the first time I have taken part in anything like this.

"The serious point of the exercise was to see if the vibrations could measured on seismological equipment around the world. It was estimated that an earth tremour measuring scale three on the Richter scale would be created, if all the schoolchildren in the United Kingdom joined in.

"We will be holding other science experiments throughout the year - including more mass participation events," he added.

Deputy head Mr John Downs said youngsters were required to wear traditional leather shoes and these produced a much better impact than soft trainers.

"It was good fun. We could feel the effect of the jumping, which was amazing. We were going to hold the experiment outside on the playground, but the weather was bad."