No GPS allowed as Burgess Hill Girls pupils race the sun to Beachy Head

Race the Sun is a highlight of the school year for Sixth Form students from Burgess Hill Girls, who gather at a secret location on the edge of the South Downs National Park and walk through the night to reach Beachy Head by sunrise.

Starting at 9.30pm, 40 girls walked 14 miles eastwards across the Downs to see the sun rise over Beachy Head at 4.37am. The route had only been revealed earlier that evening. Navigation was with maps and compasses only; no mobile phones allowed!

And as if the challenges weren’t sufficient, the girls had to solve cryptic clues related to landmarks each time they registered at checkpoints along the route.

Burgess Hill Girls Head Liz Laybourn said: ‘The race was a much tougher challenge than they expected but it helped the girls to improve their life skills as they grappled with using a map to navigate at night and kept going when they were tired. And it allowed us to explore parts of the countryside we hadn’t seen before, latterly by torchlight or beacons lit to guide us along the trickier parts of the route.’