CHILDREN at Lostock Gralam Primary School raised the roof at the Manchester Evening News Arena last Monday when they took part in a national singing event.

Pupils from the juniors joined almost 8,000 other schoolchildren and celebrities such as former Blue singer Lee Ryan, to take part in the annual Young Voices concert.

Headteacher Cheryl Walton said the youngsters put their heart and soul into the massive event.

"It was fantastic, the children were completely absorbed in the whole thing and they loved the whole notion of being part of something very big," she said.

The young singers started practising the songs more than a month ago, and were given CDs so they could practise at home with their parents.

On the day, they arrived at 2.30pm and spent the afternoon fine-tuning their performance, before letting the parents in at 7pm for the concert itself.

Urban dancers were on hand to teach the schools some funky moves, while BBC's Songs of Praise conductor David Lawrence led the singing.

Enough children took part to half-fill the 21,000 person capacity arena, and Miss Watson said the Lostock youngsters were still singing when they arrived back in Northwich at 11.30pm.

The school has a history of vocal achievment, having taken part in Young Voices in 2005 and also contributing to the current world record for the largest simultaneous sing-a-long.

Miss Watson said: "In 2005 we did the Big Sing and got into the Guinness Book of Records for it."

A staggering 293,278 schoolchildren all sang the same song at the same time to take the title. This year's Big Sing is aiming to getting one million children singing simultaneously.