The aim was to celebrate and promote music in schools and, thanks to generous sponsorship from The Melton building society, £2,000 was up for grabs.

We were inundated with 28 entries from groups, ensembles, orchestras, bands and choirs from across the Vale and Melton and the final shortlist drawn up by judges Sheila Aston and Tony Rifugiato was independently judged at the weekend.

Winner of the £1,000 prize is the St Francis' Primary School Choir and runners-up Croxton Kerrial Primary School Choir and Free Tibet, a rock group from Long Field High School, each won £500. Highly commended were Brownlow Brass from Brownlow Primary School and Vacant Wave from King Edward Vll School.

Karen Middleton, the building society's marketing manager, visited the schools on Monday and Tuesday to hand over the prizes.
She said: "Well done to all the schools who took part. The standard of entries has been exceptional and I am sure it wasn't an easy job for the judges to decide on winning performances."

St Francis' music teacher Miranda Willder said: "Winning this £1,000 first prize has been a fantasic ending to a very busy year for the choir. It was also a great way for me to end my 30th year teaching at St Francis."

Since the autumn term the choir has sung in Market Place for the Fair Trade celebration; performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London; sang for the Mayor's Christmas concert ; sang at the Menpys carol concert at De Montfort Hall Leicester; sang with the Bach Choir in Leicester Cathedral and performed Resurrection Rock in St Mary's Parish Church.

Mrs Willder added: "Having only just found out about our win we haven't decided how to spend the money but are considering music software for our computer suite, more percussion instruments, hand chimes, mini steel pans and music for the choir and instrumental groups."

Liz Christensen, head of music at Long Field, said: "The band has lots of potential. Jaspar has just won a music scholarship to Leicester Grammar School. They all played in our summer production, LF High The Musical, performing Johnny B Goode, School of Rock and Sweet Child of Mine. We thinking of spending the prize on a new drum kit."

Croxton Kerrial music co-ordinator Rachel Davidson said: "We are absolutely delighted to be a runner up in Music Makers. The children so enjoyed the whole process and many of their families have e-mailed friends and family around the world so they could watch their entry on the Melton Times website www.meltontimes.co.uk

"We are planning to buy some new teaching resources, extra percussion instruments and some more CDs for listening and appraising activities, as we have very few of these."

As well as viewing the 28 videos on our website www.meltontimes.co.uk you can find them on our YouTube page www.youtube.com/meltontimes where there have been 500 hits in a week – among the most viewed are Vacant Wave, St Francis' Rocking Recorders and Gaddesby Orchestra.