DRAMA staff and students dug deep into their pockets -- and their knowledge -- to help a teacher's charity wish.

Lowton Community Sports College staged a drama weekend to help Sarah Cakebread run the London Marathon on behalf of her sick sister.

Sarah, whose younger sister Charlotte suffered a series of strokes from the age of 25, needed £1,400 to run the event for the Stroke Association.

And the cash-raising weekend gathered the funds needed for her to take part -- and through sheer drive and determination produced two superb pieces of work which had their debut last week.

Department head Cath Gorman and teachers Liane Buckley and Sarah, together with former student Hannah Green, and 60 pupils from years 7-11, who paid £20 each for the privilege, met for the first time at 7pm on Friday.

They split into two groups and worked solidly for three hours on Friday and for seven on Saturday. By 3pm on Sunday they had two plays in the bag.

Liane said: "The result of the weekend is that two fantastic pieces of drama have been created and Sarah has reached her target..

"We started from scratch with the Dig Deep idea, Sarah talked about her sister's illness and the children took it on board. It ended up a real fun and productive weekend."

The shows were later performed before an audience in school.

Sarah is now well on with training for her London Marathon debut challenge this weekend.