A SUPERFIT primary school teacher was missing her pupils terribly and wanted to visit them individually. So marathon running Sarah Wilson, 43, who teaches early years and nursery children, decided to do an 18-mile (28 kilometers) run to visit each of them. The dedicated teacher, who works at Fishergate Primary in York, visited more than 60 of her pupils so she could speak to them at their homes. It took mum-of-three Wilson six hours to complete her mission.

She carefully mapped out the route of all their homes — with only one pupil who lived too far out being met halfway. Wilson also raised more than US$1,227 for national foodbank charity The Trussell Trust while she was at it.

She said: “Every year, on May 4, our lovely school do a Star Wars marathon day where all the kids get involved to run a mile each to complete marathons in aid of charity. “I was sad that that wouldn’t be going ahead this year, so we started thinking about what we could do.”

She continued: “We didn’t want to encourage everybody to go out so instead it was decided that I would do the running. I teach 5, 6 and 7-year-olds so I find checking in with them can be quite difficult on the phone — some of them don’t like to chat. “ So I decided to combine our May run with checking in with the kids and it worked brilliantly.”

All her children downloaded a tracking app called Glympse, which allowed them to track where she was and see when she was coming near to their homes. Most of the kids were out waiting for her when she arrived with big smiles and a cheer. “My only worry was that, as they are so young, some kids might want a hug but it seemed they were well-prepped on social distancing so they knew to keep well back from me,” said Sarah.

(SD-Agencies)