SELWYN Junior School was transformed into a circus last Thursday as the whole school learned how to make it in the big top.

Shooting Stars Circus Workshop visited the school in Cavendish Road, Highams Park, to let the children have a go at uni and minicycling, stilt walking, juggling with balls, clubs and scarfs, plate spinning, diablo, balancing peacock feathers on their fingers and even tightrope walking.

Teacher Lorraine Brett said: "Nobody has said they wanted to run away and join the circus, but they did enjoy it."

The workshops were organised as a stimulus for an art project that Selwyn, along with schools across the borough, is taking part in.

Inspired by a painting chosen as a way of getting the children thinking about their subject, Ms Brett said the children went away with bags of idea.

The painting, Circus, by Marc Chagall, a Russian-born French painter who lived between 1876 and 1985, was one of a series by the artist which depicted life under the big top.

Ms Brett said: "The children loved it, it's a different thing to do. We do have a lot of events like this in the school but this is one of the most unusual."

The art the children create will be displayed at Heathcote School, Chingford, in July.

Other art projects the pupils of Selwyn Juniors are getting involved in include a musical adaptation of Macbeth which will have a choir of 60 pupils and a cast of up to 50 and a performance of the African Sanctus in July at Waltham Forest Town Hall with the South West Essex choir.