HIGH-FLYERS at a Littlemore cheerleading club are jumping for joy after being awarded £10,000.

The Allstar Heroes, who train at John Henry Newman Academy, won the funding boost as part of the OneFamily Foundation community awards.

Voting closed on September 6 but nervous coaches, students and parents did not find out the group had been successful for several weeks.

Led by experienced coach Sophie Welton, the thriving club has been running since 2012.

At the start, the group had no permanent training venue, a single training session a month and one team made up a variety of ages.

Now they have more than 50 members spread across five teams ranging from ages three to 30 and will this year compete in three national competitions.

The £10,000 will help the club continue to grow, paying for more mats to give the teams enough room to practice all of their routines, hall hire for training and entrance fees for national competitions to showcase the work the teams put into each season.

It will also pay for training for the coaches. All current coaching is voluntary and qualifications are renewed every three years.

This will also mean they will be able to qualify Junior Coaches that are nurtured internally.

Wendy Davis, whose seven-year-old daughter Mia has been attending Allstar Heroes since she was four, said: "She absolutely loves it. Sophie and the team are fantastic and go above and beyond for the children. They put in so much time and energy without getting paid."

The mother of two from Abingdon added: "I think the amount of people who voted shows the level of appreciation and support there is is for the group."

A message on the group's website thanked coaches, parents and athletes for the 'mammoth' effort to help the club win the grant and added: "We are absolutely delighted and so incredibly thankful to everyone who voted for us."