Students at St Christopher School in Letchworth have been left inspired to raise money for charity after an educational assembly.

Smile Train is an international children’s charity which provides free surgery and care for children suffering with cleft lip and palate in developing countries.

To support the charity, a Year 11 form group gave an inspirational talk to educate their classmates and teachers about the cleft lip and palate condition.

They also discussed the value of Smile Train’s work all around the world.

After the talk, the students were invited to organise a bake sale to raise money for the charity. They were told £150 would cover the cost for one operation, so they made this their overall target.

Several students and staff members brought in homemade cakes and biscuits to sell, resulting in £300 raised for Smile Train.

Once the bake sale was over, Year 7 student Jed Timmer set off in his lunch break around the school with a tray of leftover cakes and a bucket, managing to raise an extra £30.

Rachel Annette, also in Year 7, added to the total by donating £10 of her birthday money to the pot.

When the fundraiser total was announced during school assembly, students and staff decided to dig deeper and donate even more, resulting in an end total of £450 for Smile Train – treble the school’s initial target, in the end donating enough money for three cleft repair surgeries.

St Christopher School head Richard Palmer said: “Our students were inspired to support Smile Train by the talk that one of our Year 11 form groups gave about the charity and the work that they do.

“Working to a clear target of providing one operation for a child really helped galvanise the school – the fact that they ended up raising enough for three operations is brilliant.

“Our students were well-organised, civic-minded and generous, and we are proud of the way that they threw themselves into the fundraising drive.”

To find out more about Smile Train or to donate, go to smiletrain.org.uk/donate or search Smile Train on Twitter to see some of the charity’s success stories.