Tour de France cycling hero Brian Robinson helped youngsters at a Holmfirth school come top of the class.

Brian, 84, of Mirfield, was chosen as one of the four inspirational figures to be honoured at Netherthong Primary School.

Teachers at the school decided to launch a ‘house system’ where groups of youngsters compete against each other for points.

Staff picked four Yorkshire achievers to celebrate and give their names to the four houses.

Brian, the first Briton to win a stage of the Tour in 1958, was one, along with Marsden poet Simon Armitage, whose wife Sue was a previous chairman of governors; former Netherthong pupil and author Annabel Pitcher; and Leeds-based Olympic and Commonwealth gold medal-winning boxer Nicola Adams.

Children in each house were then asked to research their hero and write a letter to persuade them to visit the school.

Deputy head and year 4 teacher Mark Crouch set his Robinson house crew to work and Brian was the first to respond and agree to take an assembly.

Mr Crouch said: “We wanted to choose some individuals who would inspire the children but who were also people they would need to find out about. We wanted people outside the children’s popular culture.

“The school is very keen on cycling and many of the children cycle to school. Brian has already inspired some of the children to cycle up Holme Moss, that’s a fantastic achievement for an eight-year-old.”

All Robinson house youngsters wrote a letter to Brian and Mr Crouch selected the best five – from Jay Smith, Jake Smith, Zara Farrow, Annabel McLean and Emma Flynn – to send.

Tour de France veteran Brian Robinson meets the children of Netherthong Primary School, pictured with Mark Crouch - Deputy Head.

However, the youngsters didn’t have Brian’s address and it took a little detective work to track him down. Contact was made through a friend and Brian rang the school, delighted to help.

Brian took the assembly and spoke about his love of cycling and was rewarded with flapjacks made by the children.

“Brian was brilliant,” said Mr Crouch. “He told how cycling had changed over the years and urged children to give it a go.”

Annabel Pitcher will be coming to the school later this month with Simon set to follow but youngsters may have to find a bit more punch to land Nicola.

“We’ve been in touch with her agent,” said Mr Crouch. “But she might be too big for us.”