PONTELAND schoolchildren walked out of school with bare feet on their last day of term, after donating their shoes to charity.

The pupils from Darras Hall First School donated their shoes to children who are in need of footwear through charity Sal's Shoes.

Sal's Shoes aims to put shoes on the feet of some of the 300 million children in the world for whom walking with shoes is a rarity. It sends shoes to dozens of countries across the world.

Headteacher of Darras Hall First School Victoria Parr said: "What appealed to us about Sal's Shoes was that it was different to sending money somewhere. Because the children are still young we weren't 100 per cent sure they are aware of the real meaning of donating to charity.

"It's giving something belonging to them to other children. We've done a lot of research looking at countries where the children might not have shoes.

"It's a double pronged approach because on one side it's giving something to someone who doesn't have them, but as well as that, for the last half hour of so of the school day they all took their shoes off and they walked out in bare feet.

"That helped them empathise with the situations of people who can't wear shoes, and when they were complaining about it being uncomfortable, it helped them understand that some children do this all the time."

Ms Parr said the majority of the school's 450 children took part, and they collected around 20 bin bags of shoes, including those donated by children, those brought in by staff and some shoes which hadn't been claimed from lost property.

Two local businesses which have links with the school, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Pearson Caulfield Solicitors, covered the cost of posting them out to the charity's headquarters in Surrey, where they will be sorted and distributed.