Five marathons in five days for Fownhope Primary School

The children were inspired by David Walliams novel The Midnight Gang where a secret gang of children help to make others' dreams come true. One of the children on the children's ward, Sally, is a very poorly little girl who receives treatments that make her hair fall out and leave her feeling very weak.

Miss Scrivens, class teacher explained "We have been inspired by the children in the story to help to make dreams come true too by raising some money for local charity the Little Princess Trust. This charity provides real hair wigs to children like Sally who have suffered hair loss through cancer treatment."

She continued "For children like Sally and those helped by the Little Princess Trust, cancer treatment is a long process, a bit like a marathon is a long race. We wanted to complete a real challenge to raise money for the charity. A few weeks ago, the children in Green Class completed a homework to come up with fundraising ideas. Lots of children suggested running a marathon so we thought, why not?

A marathon is 42,195m long and with 21 children in green class, we have to run 169 laps of the school field each day, or roughly eight laps per child per day. Some children might run more laps than eight, some might run less - it doesn't matter as long as collectively we can reach our target of 169 each day for five days.

I am incredibly proud of the children in Green Class for challenging themselves to do this for such a worthy cause."

"We are so proud of our children;" added Mr Milne, head teacher," We teach the children to think for themselves, to be kind and to read widely, but it still makes us feel great when they pull it all together themselves and come up with a real challenge like this. We actively encourage children to think independently and come up with their own ideas; our teachers are great at supporting the children in turning their ideas into a practical reality."