STUDENTS at a Pendle special school are pinning their hopes on meeting a fund-raising target.

Teenagers at Townhouse School, Nelson, are producing badges again this year for the Children in Need appeal and they are hoping to beat the £750 they raised for the charity in 1998.

Teacher Brian Chapman said the school needs to make 4,000 badges to meet the £1,000 target and already orders for 1,400 have come in.

The badges cost 50p, half of which goes to Children in Need and the other half is used to cover production costs and goes to the school's badge-making company whose profits are used to benefit students.

Townhouse has approached local schools and companies taking bulk orders for the fund-raising badges which are produced and packaged by students. The school caters for students aged between five and 19 with severe learning difficulties.

"The whole point of the exercise is that the students are working to help others," said Brian. "They also learn a wide range of skills while they are doing it."

The school has sent a Children in Need badge to presenter Terry Wogan for the past four years and this year plans to send badges to a list of celebrities. Townhouse is also producing a range of millennium paperweights.

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