Pupils pound it out for cancer charity

Fundraising run goes virtual and raises £2k

Hundreds of pupils and staff were joined by their families – and even their pet dogs – for a virtual fun run.

Every year Gryffe High School organises a charity fundraising 3k around the school grounds on the Thursday before the long September weekend.

But this year due to government restrictions, staff decided to organise a virtual run and challenged pupils to join in at some point over the four days.

Gerry O’Hare, faculty head of health and wellbeing at the school, said it had been a big hit.

“It ended up a real success,” he said. “We had a fantastic response, most if not all pupils got their families to join in.

“That was a nice aspect of it.

It’s not as easy to have mum, dad and the dog coming to the school to take part but they can join in virtually. And a lot of school staff took part too.”

So far the school has raised a fantastic £2,000 for Beatson Cancer Care – the highest charity total it’s ever raised from the 3k.

In previous years, the school has given each participant a medal which cuts into the total amount raised.

Gerry said: “This is something we might look at in the future.

“If people are happy posting selfies on social media, then we might not have to do medals again.

“We always do an in-depth evaluation afterwards to see what worked. From my own initial thoughts, this is something we might decide to do again next year, even if we are back to a more normal world.

“We’ll maybe change the challenges to keep it fresh but the remote challenge really worked well.

“I’ve been at the school 15 years and this is the most money we’ve raised for charity doing the 3k run.

“Overall it’s definitely been a real success.”