CANON Slade continue to make their mark at national championships.

No strangers to taking on the best of British the Bradshaw school took two teams to the English Schools swimming finals and have also qualified for the English Schools' cross country finals on Saturday.

The junior boys' and inter girls' teams travelled to London's Aquatic Centre for the national swimming championships for which they qualified by winning the regional finals.

They took on 30 other schools in the Olympic Pool, with the boys finishing fifth in the final of the medley relay in a time of 2mins 13.31secs after qualifying impressively in their heat.

They were just over half a second behind St Albans School who finished fourth.

They also finished 10th in the freestyle relay in 2:03.22.

The team comprised Jake Reynolds (breaststroke in the medley relay and a member of the freestyle relay), Sam Murphy (front crawl in both medley and freestyle relays), Harry Robinson (butterfly in the medley relay and a member of the freestyle relay), Zac Walmsley (member of the freestyle relay) and Dan Gregory (back crawl in the medley relay) with Tom Gillard the reserve.

The girls, who were returning to the finals after competing last year when they were in the junior girls' age group, performed well to finish seventh in the final of the medley relay in 2:09.86 – just 0.71secs behind fifth place.

They also narrowly missed out on qualifying for the final of the freestyle relay.

The team was Chelsea Crabtree (back crawl in the medley relay and a member of the freestyle relay), Charlotte Hulme (breaststroke in the medley relay and a member of the freestyle relay), Abigail Harrop (butterfly in the medley relay) Aleisha Hogan (front crawl in both medley and freestyle relays) and Talulla Hughes (freestyle relay) with Linsday Jackson and Erica Hayes the reserves.

Sporting pupils will also be looking to bring more national recognition for Canon Slade on Saturday when the junior girls travel to Formby for the cross country finals.

The Years 7 and 8 team of Anna Potter, Emily Russell, Ruby Erzan-Essien, Ella Pendlebury, Isabella Merritt and Eva Baldwin qualified for the nationals with a resounding victory at the regional finals at Birkenhead, after earlier becoming county champions at Formby.