Two Sunderland primary schools and a nursery have earned themselves cash prizes in our Barclays Cash for Schools competition.

Staff and pupils at St Leonard's RC Primary School, in Silksworth, were overjoyed when the Echo rang to tell them they had scooped the top prize of £3,500.

Also celebrating are Siblings nursery, on Sunderland's Enterprise Park East, which took second place and £1,000, and Ryhope Junior School, which came in third and won a prize of £500.

For six weeks schools across the city fcollected vouchers, which appeared four times a week in the Echo, in the hope of clinching a prize.

To make it fair on smaller schools, each of the totals collected was divided by the number of pupils in the school to give an average amount of "cash" collected by each child.

St Leonard's RC came first, with an average of £1,012 per student, Siblings nursery collected £933 per child and Ryhope Junior School was close behind with £902 per pupil.

Peter Gair, headteacher at St Leonard's, said: "This is absolutely fantastic news. It is tremendous. Everyone who has been working so hard to collect the vouchers will be delighted.

"The whole community really got behind it and worked very hard."

He said he was delighted and surprised his school had won such a huge amount of money and at the moment doesn't know what they will spend it on.

Bernie Ward, senior nursery officer at Siblings, said: "That is wonderful news. I am absolutely gobsmacked. The children and the parents and grandparents really took the challenge on board and were really enthusiastic in collecting the vouchers. It is absolutely excellent."

This is the second time Ryhope Junior School has won an Echo competition with Barclays. Last year it clinched £1,000 to spend on books through collecting vouchers.

Amanda Lough, business manager at the Shaftesbury Avenue school, said: "This is absolutely fantastic news.

"We will speak to the school council and it will be a whole school decision about how we spend the money."

She said they would like to thank everyone who collected the vouchers, including all the people who sent them into the school from the community.

Amanda said: "We got vouchers from all over the place – as far as Seaham and Seaburn, which was fantastic."

This was the fourth time the Echo and Barclays have teamed up to give schools the chance to clinch cash and has once again proved very successful.

Barclays Cash for Schools was launched this year as part of Barclays Money Skills programme, with the bank offering £5,000 in prize money to the schools which collected the most vouchers.

Barclays Money Skills project is aimed at taking financial knowledge out to the community, teaching people, especially youngsters, how to confidently manage their money.

One of the projects being developed in the North East, with the help of trading standards, uses six characters young people can relate to and covers topics such as budgeting and affordable credit, credit agreements, illegal money-lending and issues such as identity theft.

Barclays is hoping the winning schools will use their prize on projects which help promote an understanding of finances among the children.

Top 10 collectors

1. St Leonard's RC Primary School – £1,012 per pupil.
2. Siblings nursery – £933 per pupil.
3. Ryhope Junior School – £902 per pupil.
4. St Benet's RC Primary School – £858.80 per pupil.
5. Town End Primary School – £830 per pupil.
6. Benedict Biscop CE Primary School – £763.80 per pupil.
7. Hill View Junior School – £737.80 per pupil.
8. Hill View Infants School – £668 per pupil.
9. Bishop Harland Primary School – £647.45 per pupil.
10. St Patrick's RC Primary School – £515.40 per pupil.