FOR more than a term children have been bouncing balls, running around the playground and even keeping quiet — all in a good cause.

Now pupils at St Thomas More RC Primary School, in Bexleyheath, have raised £6,400 for good causes.

The children, aged between four and 11, were spurred into action by two of their playmates, sisters Charlotte and Bonnie Long, whose two-and-a-half-year-old sister Lucy has leukaemia.

The children took up the Long Challenge, organised by teachers Michelle Gardisi and Sarah Hancock, with enthusiasm and decided to split the money between the Long family and the Leukaemia Research Fund.

School caretaker Keith Meager arranged for Lloyd Scott — the man who completed this year’s London Marathon in an old-fashioned diving suit — to visit the school and accept some of the cash on behalf of the Leukaemia Research Fund.