SCHOOL pupils helped set up clean toilets for poor children across the globe by throwing wet sponges at their teachers.

Youngsters at Neville’s Cross Primary School, in Durham City, supported the Toilet Twinning scheme by holding a fun day which included paying to throw sponges at their teachers.

The event raised £360 for the cause.

Revd Canon Judy Hirst, associate priest at nearby St John’s Church, said: “I challenged the children in an assembly to raise £60 to twin a school toilet and they ended up twinning six.

“The initiative allows them to empathise with how dreadful it must be to have no toilets and no access to clean water and the children have reached out with their hearts.”

Headteacher Pam Monaghan, one of the teachers pelted with sponges, said: “They were keen to twin as many toilets as possible. They really rose to the challenge.

“Some even brought more money than we asked so that they could throw more sponges at the teachers.”

A total of 2.5 billion people do not have somewhere safe, clean and hygienic to go to the toilet. Nearly one in five child deaths each year is due to diarrhoea.

The school has twinned six toilets with communities in Afghanistan, Burundi, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Ethiopia and Uganda.