Who says children should be seen and not heard? Certainly not youngsters at St Andrew's Church of England School, in Lustre Street, Keighley.

The school's nursery section accepted the Chatterbox Challenge, a new campaign to raise money for children with speech and language difficulties. The campaign, launched by I CAN, challenges pre-school children to learn and recite a song, nursery rhyme or story.

For a fortnight, toddlers at St Andrew's had been busy committing rhymes to memory in preparation for their big performance. Each of them wore a hand-made mask as they sang "Five Little Monkeys" and "5 Jolly Snowmen" for the rest of the school, raising an estimated £100.

Nursery teacher and early years co-ordinator Elizabeth Ramsden said the children really enjoyed the challenge as they loved singing.

She added: "The children at our school are mainly Asian and English is their second language.

"A way of teaching them to speak is through songs. They're only three so this is a big achievement."

Sure Start Keighley also rose to the challenge at its playgroup in Braithwaite Grove.

Playgroup leader Sarah Summerscales said: "We got the information pack through and saw that the aims were to promote speech and language, and these are also aims of Sure Start. Some of the children in the group are only young, but even if they only do the actions to the songs it's a step in the right direction."

Tesco Baby and Toddler Club is supporting and funding the campaign, which hopes to involve 40,000 children across the country. Money raised will provide specialist therapy and education for parents and training for teachers and other professionals.

Joining in St Andrew's Primary School nursery's Chatterbox Challenge are, from left, Nicole Chapman, Sohail Khan, Sanna Sajid, Rozeena Rehman, Mubashar Aslam and Sidera Hussain