Students are throwing a Halloween festival to help sick and injured wildlife.

The Year 8 pupils at Lydiard Park Academy heard Oak and Furrows Wildlife Rescue, based at the Blakehill Farm Nature Reserve was in need of cash as well as dog and cat food to get its patients through the winter.

So they decided to organise their own fundraiser.

Teacher Rachel Templeman said: “So many students wanted to get involved and their response made me overwhelmed, I cried. I think because it’s the first animal charity we’ve chosen to support it’s made a difference in the number of students wanting to be involved.

“I think they all want to support Oak and Furrows because of climate change and our wildlife rapidly declining.

“We as a school have a responsibility to teach them about that and to give them opportunities to help, this makes me feel a sense of achievement and the reason why I applied to become the head of homes.”

Various stalls and raffles are all part of the festival fun on Friday.

One student Jagan Gill, 12, said: “Supporting this charity is a really good thing to do because it’s local and they need more help so they can continue to look after the animals. I love animals so it means a lot to get to do this.

"I’ve been helping organise it all with the students and teachers. On the day I will be supporting any stalls that are busy but don’t have many people on them."

And 12-year-old Sophie Lawrence will be baking for the event.

She said: “Me and my friends will be doing a raffle and we’re all going to bring in things we can give away.

“Me and my mum will be baking things such as banana bread, cakes and other treats.

“When we were all told about the event I thought it was a nice idea because I love helping animals, it’s so important to help them. A lot of their habitats get destroyed and not everyone is doing enough.”

Oliver Morris, 13 and Zaid Arrif, 12, will be helping out on the day by running their own stalls and putting on games for people to play.

One of the reasons the school wanted to support the wildlife rescue centre near Cricklade is because it take on students in year 10 for work experience. This is then added onto their CV to help them with job opportunities.

If the festival is successful they hope to run more in the future and get more students involved after the pandemic.

The rescue centre takes in around 3,000 wildlife casualties a year, including hundreds of hedgehogs that need looking after through the winter.