A DARWEN music school is hoping for a Christmas number one after a song it released surged up the charts.

Students at the Elite School of Music in Blackburn Road have released Steady Hands on to the online iTunes ‘vocal’ chart.

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And co-owner of the school Paul Stuart Davies, who wrote the song, was stunned when it rocketed to number four, just behind a charity single called Angel by Samantha Harvey, Tom Jones and Cerys Matthews’ Baby It’s Cold Outside and Defying Gravity from the musical Wicked.

The song was above Maroon Five’s She Will Be Loved and Joni Mitchell’s Both Sides Now, well known from its appearance in the Christmas classic ‘Love Actually’.

Mr Davies, who jointly owns the school with Mark Bateson, said: “It was a song I wrote a few years ago. I wanted to be able to do a single so the students could get the experience.

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“When you upload a song to iTunes you can pick the chart you want to release it to and I put it on the ‘vocal’ one, which is usually for choirs and opera singers, as you don’t have to sell that many to get into it. And then Reece Bibby tweeted about it and it went from 111 to number four!”

The 16-year-old X Factor star, who got through to the live shows with boy band Stereo Kicks, had tweeted: “Please help my old vocal coach & students get into iTunes chart by downloading new single! Big thanks if you do.”

Mr Davies said: “The idea was if we got enough parents and students helping out and downloading it we could get the children into the charts.”

Mr Davies, who has been at number one in the chart before with a charity single called Mighty By Nature, said: “We have got 30 students and there were 28 of them on the song, with all of them getting a solo line.

“We want to use the money raised from sales to take the students to a proper studio so they can get that experience as well. Rather than just teaching them how to sing or play an instrument here we like to teach them about the other side of the industry.”

“We try to do a little bit of everything.”

Darwen Aldridge Community Academy student Daniel Horton, 11, was part of the ensemble on Steady Hands.

His dad, Richard, said: “We are really proud. They have worked hard on this.

“It is a good song and they have done a really good job with it.

“It is great for them to see a piece of work go out and sell so well.

“We are really pleased with Elite. Daniel has been going there for two years and he loves it.”