INSPIRED by the communication method of the honey bee, more than 300 pupils from Corbridge Middle School have taken part in an official world record attempt for the largest waggle dance.

The youngsters, who have been working on perfecting a carefully choreographed routine for the last few weeks, took to the school yard on Monday to perform for Dr Meryl Batchelder, the school’s subject leader for science.

Dr Batchelder, who was diagnosed with breast cancer around four months ago, is currently undergoing a gruelling treatment programme.

“I’m about two thirds of the way through chemotherapy and then there’ll be radiotherapy,” she explained.

“So it’s wonderful to come back and see the kids doing all of this. I’m quite touched by the thought that’s gone into it.”

The idea for the world record attempt was born when the winter weather forced a year 8 enrichment class to abandon their outdoor gardening lessons in favour of a classroom-based honey bee project.

“Bees are amazing insects and use the waggle dance to tell the rest of the hive where to find a food source,” said Dr Batchelder.

“Some of the class were really taken by the idea that bees dance and asked if they could perform something in assembly.”

The idea then developed into a whole school world record attempt with officials from Guinness World Records confirming that the school was in with a chance of securing the title for completing “The Largest Waggle Dance” if they could get more than 250 people dressed in black and yellow performing for at least five minutes.

Independent witnesses, including chairman of Corbridge Parish Council Maurice Hodgson, supervised the attempt and will have to send off witness statements and photographic evidence before the attempt can be confirmed.

Thanks to plenty of encouragement from staff and dance teacher Pippa Wild, who choreographed the routine, the students completed 5 mins and 48 secs of simultaneous waggle dancing.

Assistant headteacher, Dean Johnston, said: “The students have done the school proud. They’ve really got behind the idea, which was originally thought up with support from Dr Batchelder, and they wanted to see it through.

“It was a great way of bringing the whole school together.”

Pupils made a donation for coming to school in non-uniform and, with cake sales, a total of £357.20 was raised for Cancer Research UK.