A history lesson involving staff and students from a secondary school has broken the world record for featuring the most multi-national people.

The idea for the lesson originated at Eastlea Community School in Canning Town which has students from across the world and decided it would be a fun and inclusive way to celebrate its diversity.

It resulted in 43 students and staff of different nationalities taking part in a 30-minute history lesson in July led by history teachers (and sisters) Nazanin and Leilee Shirani.

Leilee said: “Taking part in the challenge was a wonderful experience. I have never taught a history lesson to a room of so many students! It was really nice to celebrate the diversity within our school and to now know that we have broken the record is a great feeling – the hard work of the students and staff involved paid off.”

The event was filmed and watched by independent witnesses who collected various documents to provide evidence of nationalities.

The school had to wait about seven weeks to find out if they had broken the record which previously stood at 20 nationalities.

Staff at Guinness World Records said the school had set a new record for “Most nationalities at a history lesson” and it was now ‘officially amazing.’