CHILDREN from St Andrew's Church of England Primary School in Buckland Monachorum have been busy raising money and sending parcels to support the Ebola crisis.

The school council wanted to help the orphans after hearing about EducAid — a UK based charity promoting the education of young people affected by war and Ebola in Sierra Leone.

Royal Naval senior medical officer Kris Houlberg, who is based on HMS Argus and also has children at the school, gave a presentation about Ebola and the work done to combat the problems.

The UK armed forces have so far played a pivotal role in tackling the crisis. HMS Argus is currently deployed to assist the fight against Ebola in West Africa and in just over three months of their deployment they have raised more than £9,000 from colleagues on board and families back home through a Facebook page.

Pupils at St Andrew's school wanted to join and, after a suggestion from the organisers, packaged up parcels of stationery, clothes and soft toys — altogether, they sent over just under 60kg of parcels.

Justin Jones, deputy headteacher, said: 'In addition to this, they wrote letters and drew pictures to share with the orphans something about themselves. They were very moved to think that these children had lost their parents through this disease, writing some particularly thoughtful and caring comments about how hard it must have been for them to have lost their parents.'

Children in Years 4, 5 and 6 took part in an enduring sponsored fitness challenge involving a range of core stability tasks, along with a mufti day held before half-term and sale of tea, cakes and a raffle.

Altogether, more than £850 has been raised by the children, staff and parents.