More children than ever took to the water in the sixth Primary Schools Gala, sponsored by London & Henley, owners of The Brooks shopping centre in Winchester.

With 300 children and a full gallery of supporters, the event was both exciting and noisy.

After missing out on the top prize last year, Ridgemead School's boys squad took the Millennium cups in both the freestyle and mixed stroke relays. Well-drilled squads from Kings Worthy and Twyford Prep ran them close in both races.

Defending champions Hilting-bury kept the girls freestyle cup for a third year despite the best efforts of Charlton House, Twyford Prep and a strong team from Harestock.

Charlton House took the mixed stroke girls relay and fought off a plucky Upham squad in the final handicap relay event.

In the small schools category, the spoils were shared by Nethercliffe and St Swithuns with village schools Itchen Abbas and Upham also swimming well.

Between the relays, mainly filled with year 5 and 6 children, the individual 25-metre year 4 sprint event gave everyone a good look at the emerging swimming talent.

Penguins club coach Andy Harley said: "Local lessons programmes seem to be giving the children an excellent start - who knows what will be possible if they continue with the right coaching and training?"

Chris Sharpe from Kings Worthy held off Jamie Hill from Ridgemead to take the year 4 boys silver salver with a final swim of 17.86 seconds.

Eden Forster (Pilgrims), Joe Marchant (Harestock), Oliver Servini (St Bede), and Duguld Rhodes (Nethercliffe) also reached the final.

Emily Sambrook-Smith, representing Prince's Mead, swam 17.70 for the one-length race to leave everyone in her wake.

She stepped up to receive her silver salver from Marilyn Parker from the gala's sponsor London & Henley (Winchester) Ltd.

Laura McDonough from St Swithun's collected a second place rosette and Alexa Dymond, representing Hiltingbury, was third.

The Mayor of Winchester, Cllr Neil Baxter, was on hand to congratulate and present prizes for the top six relay squads in each event.

All of the participants went home with a commemorative T-shirt and a certificate made possible because of the sponsors London & Henley (Winchester).