Simon Cooke and Ellen Howarth-Brown won gold medals at the All England Schools Championship in Sheffield.

There were also four silver medals on a bumper day for Sussex schools' athletics.

Cooke (Chichester College) won the senior discus with a personal best 51.23m on his Sussex debut, despite picking up an injury that almost ruled him out of the competition.

He twisted his back three days before the event while weight training.

Cooke said: "I twisted and felt pain. My mum said I swore but all I could think about was that I had ruined my chances.

"But I decided to carry on because I was determined to do well for Sussex.

"I had a physio session before I got on the coach for Sheffield and had more treatment at the championships.

"To win the title for Sussex was my ambition and to do it with my best ever throw was a real bonus."

Howarth-Brown (Chichester High) came good in the intermediate 300m hurdles to improve on the silver medal she won last year. Cara Paine (Helenswood, Hastings) was second.

Howarth-Brown said: "I knew I stood a good chance of winning gold and would have been very disappointed if I had missed out. But I did not know the strength of the opposition.

"The heat went well and in the final I was drawn inside Cara, who has made tremendous progress this season.

"I pushed it hard from the start and was feeling strong. I needed to concentrate on my own race and was not really aware that Cara hung on when I went past her.

"I came into the finishing straight in the lead and just kept my pacing.

"I did not realise Cara was only a couple of metres behind. It was a great race.

"I ran one second faster than I had ever done before (43.07sec ) but that was just the icing in the cake.

"It was great both of us were side by side on the presentation podium representing Sussex."

Howarth-Brown is 13th on the British all-time under-17 list.

Paine's time of 43.41sec was nearly three seconds faster than she had ever run before.

She did not appear on the Sussex athletics scene until after the Sussex Championships in May so she has risen from obscurity to second best in the country in less than two month.

There were silver medals for two Sussex sprint champions.

Amala Onuora, (Park College, Eastbourne), who reached the final of the intermediate 200m last year, was second in the 100m.

She ran a personal best 11.89sec, the fourth fastest time by any Sussex woman sprinter, in the preliminary round.

Onuora was squeezed into second place in the final by Nicole McDermott (Buckinghamshire), the AAA Under-20 Championships winner.

Wade Bennett-Jackson was runner-up in the intermediate 200m.

The Worthing High pupil won a silver medal at 100m last year.

His chances of going one better at the longer distance were thwarted by Julian Thomas (West Midlands).

Onuora and Bennett-Jackson are both in Great Britain's team for the European Youth Olympics in Paris this month.

Sarah Fielding-Smith (Downlands, Hassocks) won a silver medal in the intermediate girls' high jump behind Shani Rainford (London). She had three brave attempts at clearing 1.71m, the winning height, but scraped the bar off each time and had to settle for 1.68m.

Jordan Murray (Varndean, Brighton) was fourth in the junior shot putt with 13.57m, 12 centimetres off a bronze medal.

There were fifth places for Philippa Aukett (Worthing College), in the senior 800m, Emily Goodall (Oakmeeds, Burgess Hill), in the junior 800m and Gavin Selway (William Parker, Hastings) in the intermediate 400m. They all achieved personal bests.

Emma Perkins (Christ's Hospital, Horsham), second in the intermediate high jump last year, was sixth in the senior triple jump.

Holly Weaver (Kings Manor, Southwick) was also sixth in the intermdiate pole vault Set Osho (Cardinal Newman, Hove), was disqualified for running out of his lane after finishing third in the intermediate 400m.