JULIA’S House, the Dorset children’s hospice, will be almost £300 better off after swimmers and students teamed up for a fund-raising charity swim.

Several Swim Bournemouth swimmers joined in as students from Bournemouth and Poole College took over a lane of the Canford School pool for three hours for their NCS Swimathon.

The students were all members of the college’s National Citizenship Scheme (NCS), which encourages 16 and 17 year olds to take on new challenges, build skills for work and meet new friends.

As part of their four-week course, the 15 students had to organise a community project and the fund-raising swim proved a popular suggestion.

“The idea is to use the skills we have acquired over the four weeks and to help each other out – giving as well as taking,” said 16-year-old Ben Horsford.

“We chose Julia’s House because they help children who are less fortunate and they had a problem with funding last year.”

Amy Maidment, also 16, added: “Because it is a charity for children, it appealed to us, as young people, to help.

“As part of the project, we had to speak to the charity to get them on our side.

“We also had to rent the pool although we weren’t allowed to spend any money.

“We managed to get donations from businesses including Lush, Lidl, Tesco and Canford Sports Centre, who gave us a lane of their pool for free.

“It was really hard to get people to swim. The swimming clubs are on holiday.

“Others said they didn’t have time or were already supporting a charity.”

To boost the charity coffers, each swimmer agreed to pay 50p a length to swim 10 lengths of the 25-metre pool.

The students also provided refreshments throughout the morning.

The team raised £299, considerably more than their target of £160 to £200.