A group of school children appeared on TV on Christmas Day as part of a festive advert.

The 30 youngsters from Halstead and surrounding villages catch the school bus from the town to Ipswich High School, in Suffolk, every day.

Natalie Foster, finance officer at the school, said: “There was feedback from some of the girls who travel by bus that there wasn’t much interaction between older students and younger ones on the bus, so I devised a bus singing competition to get them working together.

“Each bus was filmed singing a song, and the Halstead bus won.”

She then discovered that McDonalds was asking people to send in videos of them singing Wizard’s I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday, and sent off the video of the Halstead bus’ version.

The children can be seen decked out with Christmas hats and the bus decorated in the festive theme whilst they sing the festive favourite.

They found out last Wednesday that their video had been chosen to be included in the 60 second video, aired on Christmas Day at 7.55pm during Coronation Street on ITV.

About 20 other clips of people singing are also shown in the advert, including James Cordon singing in a golf buggy.

The advert aims to give insight into the good times created on Christmas journeys.

“They are all just normal students - none of them are professional singers,” Ms Foster added.

“I am sure they were all really excited to see themselves on television.

“The video has worked as now more children are asking to get the bus in as it is more fun.”

To view the video, visit mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome.html