A PENDLE school has set up its own foodbank as the first step into creating a charity to help local families.

Barrowford Primary this month appealed for food and advent calendars.

Now headteacher Rachel Tomlinson hopes to create a charity based around volunteer organisation Pendle Helping Hands In its latest newsletter, The school appealed for donations to help make struggling local families’ Christmas more festive.

The response of parents overwhelmed MrsTomlinson and her staff.

In just two weeks the school has received dozens of gifts from pupils, parents, their families and friends, delighting Mrs Tomlinson, whose summer letter telling her pupils not to worry about exams became a global internet hit.

The school newsletter told parents: “Some of you may have seen Jason Manford appealing for people to take selection boxes to local foodbanks for children at Christmas.

“If you have any spare cash and you want to drop a selection box or an advent calendar at school for our foodbank, we will pass them on to children and families we know would appreciate them.

“If we have more than we can distribute then we will donate them in turn to a local foodbank.”

Mrs Tomlinson said yesterday: “We are delighted that parents and others within the community have been extremely generous and donated both advent calendars and food since our appeal.

“We will be distributing all these gifts to families in need within our local community in the run up to Christmas. “We will also send items to local foodbanks.

“As part of our ethos, Everybody at the school believes in the importance of helping others. “We are in the process of setting up a charity, ‘Pendle Helping Hands,’ as there is a need within our local community to help others that fall outside the normal remit of a school environment.”

“Pendle Helping Hands are a small, charitable organisation run by volunteers whose aim is to provide early intervention for children and families in the Pendle area to improve lifelong social and emotional wellbeing within the community.”

In July Mrs Tomlinson sent a message to year 6 leavers telling them: “The scores you get will tell you something, but they will not tell you everything.

“These tests do not always assess all of what it is that makes each of you special and unique.”

A picture of one of the letters written to pupil Charlie Owen went viral with thousands sharing the image on social media. Celebrities and teachers on Twitter spoke of being moved.