CHILDREN of Exbourne Primary School should have extra fun during break time in the near future as the school and its PFA team up to raise money for new playground equipment.

The school and PFA aim to raise between £3,000 and £5,000 to install new play equipment in the school playground, including rope bridges and other items.

Fundraising efforts started at the school last Tuesday with a table-top sale. There will be an ongoing series of events to raise money, with the team planning a soup and dessert dinner for the near future.

One of the school's pupils, Charlotte Gazzard, is also doing her bit to raise funds by selling copies of a cookbook she has written.

Charlotte, 10, has written a cookbook full of simple and healthy recipes with colour photographs to raise funds for both the school and Comic Relief, with the money being split evenly between the two. A total of 120 copies have been printed and bound free of charge, courtesy of MPG Books in Bodmin.

Charlotte's mother and PFA member Lisa Gazzard said: 'We gave Charlotte a laptop for Christmas. I've used Blurb.com before to make books for Christmas presents and things, and we set Charlotte a fun project to write her own cook book.

'Once she was finished we thought initially about raising money primarily for Comic Relief, but when the school play equipment issue came up, Charlotte wanted to split the money evenly.

'Charlotte is a big fan of chef Mary Berry, and she inspired Charlotte when writing the cook book. We are planning to send her a copy, and hopefully she will sign it and we can put it in a silent auction.

'This is the first fundraising thing she has done like this, but she has been really keen to see her book benefit lots of people.'

Copies of Charlotte's book are available from the school and should be available in the Burrow underground shop in the near future.