The Queen’s Baton Relay entered Ipswich to the apt setting of a sports day at the Northgate Sports Centre.

A total of 620 pupils from 49 schools in Ipswich and south Suffolk fielded 62 teams to the school games which included events such as the 75m race, the 600m race and the standing long jump.

The day opened with a speech from David Hutton, head teacher at Northgate High School.

Mr Hutton reminded the pupils that the baton for the commonwealth games had travelled to every corner of the commonwealth including 68 countries before arriving in England en route to its final destination in Glasgow.

Ali Furlong, school games organiser, said: “I’m very pleased with the schools’ responses. They’ve all been here on time and that makes things so much easier. Everybody is excited about the baton arriving later.”

Dave Lee-Allan, acting head teacher at Westbourne Academy who also helped to organise the event, said: “We are enormously impressed with the scale of the event and the organisation of it. It sounds kind of clichéd but as a celebration of sport it’s just fantastic. We are just happy to be involved.”

The games were just drawing to a close when the baton arrived, borne by Great Britain handball star Louise Jukes through a guard of honour composed of young athletes from Ipswich Jaffa running club.

Louise, who represented Great Britain in handball in the 2012 Olympics, is hoping to increase interest in the sport and create two new handball clubs in Suffolk; one in Bury St Edmunds and one in Lowestoft.

Each school competing in the school games nominated one pupil to escort the baton as Louise ran it around the sports track.

The remaining pupils and sports leaders from QuadKids lined the inside of the track to cheer on the baton bearer.

All of the participants then gathered in the centre of the track to form a human England flag.