For the whole of December a variety of wild and wondrous activities took place at Blyth School Community College to raise money for a number of charities, with the money distributed during the course of the year.

The unusually named 'Red Bucket' appeal began about 20 years ago when Tynedale High teacher Jeff Hay decided to see how much loose change he could find around the school in the lead up to Christmas – money which had been dropped by staff and students.

He was amazed at how much there was and when looking for something to collect the coins in the first thing he came across was one of the cleaning staff's red buckets.

From then on December became a fundraising month, with monies raised going to local or British charities.

And when Blyth's Tynedale and Ridley High schools merged the tradition continued.

And this year a group of Year 9 students chose Cash For Kids to donate their share of the Red Bucket money.

Many of the Blyth youngsters had heard the Metro Radio appeal to raise money for a teenage cancer 'chill out' room in the RVI and were keen to support a fund which helped other young people in their region.

Maths teacher Emma Williams was invited to take a group of Year 9 students to Metro Radio, where they were given a tour of the station, introduced to presenter, Mark Thorburn, live on air, before officially handing over a cheque for £300 to charity manager Dan Smith.

The students are already in talks with Dan on ways they could to raise even more money for the charity and are planning some further fundraising activities for the summer.