Students and teachers have put Barking and Dagenham top of the list at the Annual Royal Navy Field Gun Challenge.

Eighteen students and two staff members from Elutec Engineering and Science School in Reede Road, Dagenham, went off to represent their school and their borough. Heading off to HMS Collingwood in Portsmouth for some gruelling military training.

They finished top of the table for schools in the country and finished fifth overall, even beating some of the Royal Navy’s own teams in the process.

Principal of the school Ruth Umerah spoke highly of her students’ achievements after beating some of the Royal Navy’s schools in the process.

Peter Quinn, a technical learning mentor at the school was one of the Elutec staff members that took part in the field gun run. He praised his student’s efforts saying: “On Monday I thought ‘how am I going to get this group together’, by Friday I and others are left speechless by what they achieved.”

A week of hard work started on the Monday, July 3, with a 5am start before heading to HMS Collingwood for training drills and heading back in the evening. This was followed by more of the same the next day, leading to some of the crew questioning themselves if they could carry on. Wednesday, July 5, and Thursday, July 6, were the days that gun runs were first put together by the team with the bonds between the students growing. Falling perfectly into place in time for the big day of the gun show and how they could handle the pressure of the parade on Friday, July 7.

Their determination could not be questioned with student and outgoing head boy David Whaba who stated: “Adventure is what makes life fun so going off to the navy for a week and participate in the gun run is honestly a great experience”.

It’s fair to say this experience was no picnic with team member Helma Cordoza saying: “Joining field gun was nothing I or others had expected, it was a much harder experience, I would definitely do again.”