ST Ambrose College's long march round Hale Barns is hoping to raise more than £10,000 to support its sister school in Sierra Leone.

More than 500 pupils and staff beat the bounds of the village, completing three circuits and a total of six miles in an annual sponsored walk.

St Ambrose College assistant head Patrick Groves said: “The locals have definitely warmed to us. So many came up to staff and boys alike to say how much they admired what we were trying to achieve and how well mannered and orderly the boys had been during the walk. It was heartening to get such a welcome from our friends in the community.”

The walk was labelled 'The Walk for Water' and each boy was given a target of £20 to raise in sponsorship. Over the past decade St Ambrose, as part of the U.K.'s Christian Brothers network of schools, has sponsored a school in poverty stricken Sierra Leone which had been emerging from the scars of civil war in the 1990s only to be struck by the Ebola pandemic two years ago.

St. Ambrose principal James Keulemans said: “To the boys £20 might seem like an insignificant amount but if you compare that to throwing a small pebble into a flat pond you can see the ripple effect. Throw in the efforts of 500 boys on their walk around Hale Barns and so many other pupils up and down the country then that ripple becomes a wave.”