Girls of 12 and 13 have won a national “innovation” award in science and technology with their invention that warns when classroom temperature and light level get above a certain threshold.

Five intrepid Year 8 inventors from Francis Holland School scored the highest marks of any secondary in this year’s PA Consulting's 'Raspberry Pi' competition.

They were up against 200 teams from all over the UK with their “room environment monitor” to help reduce the Regent’s Park school’s energy use in response to climate warming.

Their invention got the thumbs up from a panel of experts from top corporations and organisations including PepsiCo, Rolls-Royce, Microsoft and the NHS.

“Encouraging the next generation of innovators is important,” PA Consulting’s David Rees said. “We aim to help children develop their interest in the impact that technologies can have. The ingenuity of young people is remarkable, coupled with their drive that will help shape our future.”

The Francis Holland pupils “showed a high level of expertise and an abundance of enthusiasm”, the judges concluded.

They won the ‘secondary school’ category, with other winners from ‘primary school’ and ‘sixthform college’ categories. Winning teams in each category received £1,000 for their school.

Francis Holland has a rising popularity of clubs such as Robotics and Coding. It recently had as a guest speaker computer scientist Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon, the youngest girl ever to pass A-Level Computing when she was just 11.

The school is offering A-level computer science for the first time from September.