'The NSPCC is overwhelmed by the response from a Hertfordshire school to their FULL STOP Week (3-9 October) launched by the children’s charity as part of their Talk ‘til it stops campaign.'

The College Junior School pupils have raised more than £14000 from just two sponsored events. The seven and eight year olds took part in a challenging “spellathon”, spelling twenty tricky words correctly, whilst the nine to thirteen year olds swam for fifteen minutes, then ran for fifteen minutes.

“The response of pupils, parents, relatives and friends has been incredible,” said Mr Adrian Hathaway, teacher and charity co-ordinator in the Junior School at the College. “Cultivating a sense of responsibility and care towards others is an important part of what we do as a school and as part of this we choose a charity each term to support. People are always very generous, but we have never raised this much in one go before.”

NSPCC Schools Organiser for Hertfordshire, Clare Fitzgerald, echoed Mr Hathaway’s amazement. “I’m speechless to be honest, and absolutely delighted! We have never, ever had such a response from a school before and the children have done really, really well. I saw some of them going off for their run with their hair still wet from the swim; they certainly had to work hard for the money.”