Nearly 500 school children provided a fitting farewell to the Norfolk School Sports Partnership's competitions team, which is being disbanded after the withdrawal of government funding.

The final event organised by a team which, over recent years, has provided countless sporting opportunities for thousands of children at all levels of ability, to experience the thrill of competing in a mind-boggling variety of games, was the County Cross Country Championships finals.

Pupils from years three, four, five and six represented the eight partnerships at Taverhall Hall School after coming through their own regional competition.

And after all the calculations, it was Norwich East who were declared as overall winners, pipping West Norfolk to second, with South Norfolk third.

The team has been working with schools, sports partnerships and national governing bodies to increase participation in competitive school sport.

They have delivered a comprehensive calendar, partnership competitions and a schools competition programme.

In the 2009-10 academic year the Norfolk competition team provided school sports competition to more than 25,000 children and young people.

Funding was withdrawn at the end of March as part of cuts to PE and school sport across the country, despite achieving year on year increases in participation.

The future is still promising with the government's recent announcement of future school games organisers to provide interschool competition.

A toolkit has been designed by the Norfolk team – Stuart Brunton-Douglas, Jon Eaton and Alex Bond – to help any competition organiser arrange a high quality competition.

Anyone interested in this free resource can find contact details at www.norfolkssp.co.uk