KIND-HEARTED schoolchildren have been working on a special community project in the run-up to Christmas.

Called The Twelve Days of Christmas at Parsons Heath, the mission has been to fill as many food hampers as possible for people and families living near the Colchester school.

Items were suggested and donations started rolling in from the start of December.

Families were asked to contribute one or two items from the list but staff were left amazed by their generosity.

In total, the school managed to collect enough supplies to assemble 91 hampers, put together by year six pupils and members of staff.

Some of these hampers will be delivered around the community to families by coaches from SCS (Sports Coaching Specialists), who deliver PE lessons at the Templewood Road school.

The rest will be given to other people in need around Colchester.

To inspire the children as they collected food, the school created their own version of the famous 12 Days of Christmas song.

Here is a taster of the fun lyrics used: On the 12th day of Christmas, the families of Parsons Heath sent to me… 12 tubs of sweeties, 11 bags of flour, ten crunchy apples, nine chocolate bars, eight Christmas crackers, seven boxes of biscuits, six fresh laid eggs, five breakfast cereals, four toilet rolls, three packs of Angel Delight, two bags of rice or pasta and a tin of food or three!