Primary school pupils donned their walking boots to raise more than £800 in the name of a better education for other children.
Students from Year 2 to Year 6 at Mottram St Andrew Primary Academy explored the footpaths from Mottram to Alderley Edge in their annual sponsored walk for their link school, Dennegeur Primary in South Africa.
The walks have raised around £10,000 for their South African counterparts over the last 12 years.
Christine Bowen, headteacher, first visited Dennegeur about 14 years ago and was struck by the poverty of the area and the resourcefulness of the school’s staff.
She then resolved to try to support the school in its mission to provide a better education for the children in its care.
The money raised over the years has allowed the school to increase the number of teachers and improve facilities there.
The link between the two schools had also, Mrs Bowen said, been a way of giving the Mottram pupils ‘a real example of life in another country at a very different stage of development from our own’.
She added: “Our children are growing up here in Macclesfield in a privileged position but the children at Dennegeur have very little.
“They may have only three pencil crayons in an old tin but they look after them as if they were of great value.
“By the relationship with the children in South Africa our children can understand how lucky they are and how they have a responsibility to the rest of the world.”
Blue skies shone down on the children as they climbed up to The Edge for ‘splendid’ views of Mottram and the dry ground meant the children completed their walk in record time.
Mrs Bowen said: “They were tired by the time they got back but all felt a sense of achievement as they knew their efforts were very worthwhile.”
