MORE than 1,500 staff and students at Wiltshire College donned a range of colourful headgear in a record breaking attempt at wearing paper hats.

Trying to achieve a Guinness World Record for the ‘Most people wearing recyclable hats simultaneously across multiple locations’, the challenge took place across all four of the college’s main campuses – Salisbury, Trowbridge, Chippenham, and Lackham - as well as at its enterprise centres in Warminster and Devizes.

All the hats were made from recyclable paper and included a mixture of creative designs with everything from berets to top hats and crowns to bonnets.

The world record attempt focused on raising awareness of a variety of important life issues including the environment and sustainability as well as making it into the record books.

Principal Di Dale, who wore a lily pad hat made for her by two college students, said: “I was delighted with my hat and feel the students have all been absolutely brilliant during the whole record attempt, from coming up with this novel idea to helping us to reduce our consumption of paper and supporting recycling within the college.”

Students, staff and members of the public wore their hats under controlled conditions for six minutes.

The current record for the most people wearing paper hats simultaneously is 972 and was achieved by a company in Japan on October 14.

It is expected to take up to six weeks until the college hears if it has broken the Guinness World Record.