YOUNG athletes were jumping for joy when they were put through their paces by school sports leaders.

On Monday, 15 pupils from King Alfred’s Academy, Wantage, ran a day of indoor athletics competitions at Faringdon Leisure Centre.

The Young Leaders are being trained through £5,000 worth of 2012 Olympic Legacy funding.

The Year Eight and Year 12 students ran one session for secondary schools in the area and one for primary schools.

Year Eight pupil Josh Legg, 12, supervised the vertical jump where a ruler is placed next to a wall to measure how high the youngsters can jump.

Josh said “I really enjoyed taking part today. What really surprised me was that the primary teams were really competitive – probably more so than the secondary teams.”

Some of the £5,000 will be used to purchase indoor athletics equipment.

Young sports leaders will then train up future young leaders to run such events with minimal adult input.

The equipment used for Monday’s events belonged to Sportshall UK.