Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a genetically inherited disease affecting the lungs and digestive system.

Life-threatening, it makes breathing and digestion difficult, resulting in sufferers having to rely on physiotherapy and other forms of medication.

In the United Kingdom, CF is the most common inherited disease, affecting 8,000 people and, shockingly, around one in every 25 of our population is a carrier of the defective gene.

The Cystic Fibrosis Trust was established in 1964, and aims to make living with CF easier.

Above all they work to raise awareness of the disease through funding research.

At the end of the last academic year Hayes School hosted a dress-down' day to raise funds for the trust.

The all-school event raised a massive £980.

Over two months on, this money has been put towards research organised by the trust.

Year 8 student Georgia Beazley suffers with CF.

She presented the funds to the chief executive of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Rosie Barnes, who said: "We very much appreciate this and hope that the research it will go towards will be of benefit to Georgia."

Georgia's headmaster Kieran Osborne explained that "once you know of someone who has the illness you seem to discover so much more about it.

"There are three reasons why I'm keen for Hayes to get involved with such projects. Firstly, they raise awareness of the illness and the disadvantages caused. Secondly, it gives our students the opportunity to actively do something to help, and thirdly, it raises all-important funds for these underfunded areas."

He went on to say that "this dress-down day is only a small step to raising the funds this illness needs."

By Rebecca Lake