STRICTLY Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood is taking a day out from the hit BBC show to help children at a Suffolk middle school improve their dance skills.

Laurence Cawley

STRICTLY Come Dancing judge Craig Revel Horwood is taking a day out from the hit BBC show to help children at a Suffolk middle school improve their dance skills.

Everybody at St Louis Catholic Middle School in Bury St Edmunds is said to be eager with anticipation about the star's visit on Thursday.

The school had known it would be getting one of the judges from the show as a prize in a competition run by the National Osteoporosis Society.

The prize was scooped by the school's senior drama group on the back of a performance they gave at the Wolsey Theatre Youth Festival.

The school has now learned it will be visited by the 44-year-old Mr Revel Horwood, who is known to the show's audience for his no-nonsense criticism of contestants' performances.

The school's head of English and drama Jakki Biggs said the judge would be at the school for the afternoon. He will attend an assembly, watch the year six group dance and run a workshop with children.

School spokeswoman Pam Pitts said: “The year six dance group is already very excited about performing a routine for such a knowledgeable professional whom they see every Saturday on television.”

She told how the Australian dancer and theatre director would be taking a dance session called “a boogie for your bones” with the school's budding dancers.

Mr Revel Horwood's visit comes just weeks after Suffolk's Richard Dunwoody was voted off the show.

The former champion jockey - who was brought up in Newmarket - was partnered with 31-year-old dance partner Lilia Kopylova for the show.

He admitted before his first appearance on the show that he had “two left feet” and little sense of rhythm.