STUDENTS at Costello Technology College have pulled out all the stops to help Children In Need and make sure kids in Eastern Europe get at least one gift this Christmas.

Years 7 and 8 gathered all the spare sweets, toys and other goodies they could, to make 60 Christmas parcels for children in Romania. These packages will be shipped in time for Christmas, although Costello had to raise the funds to cover the cost themselves.

With the whole school mobilised, this proved no problem.

The drive to send the gifts to Romania was linked to this year's Children In Need campaign and the students quickly came up with plenty of fundraising ideas.

By staging raffles, coming into school wearing pyjamas or even spending the day tied to a friend, the cost of shipping the gifts was not only covered but more than £3000 was left over to donate to Children In Need.

Assistant headteacher Diane Marchant was proud of the school's efforts. She said: "So much criticism today is aimed at adolescents.

"However, at Costello, surely one can only be impressed by the thoughtfulness of the students."