A TEENAGER hoping to spark world leaders into helping to provide a basic education for children in poorer countries is being backed by the foreign secretary.

Emma Woods, 15, of Bedale School, led her fellow pupils in supporting the worldwide 1 Goal - Send My Friend to School campaign.

The scheme works by the youngsters each designing a piece of scarf on an A4 sheet.

They then got friends and family to sign their piece before they were all joined together in one long scarf to go to the Prime Minister.

Thousands of groups nationally have taken part and the idea is that the scarves raise awareness of the lack of basic education facilities in some countries.

The 1 Goal - Send My Friend to School organisers hope the leaders of the developed countries will give support to the poorer ones.

William Hague, MP for Northallerton and foreign secretary, visited Bedale School, to see the work.

Headteacher Graham Turner said: "Emma came to us with the idea and I’m delighted that this grew out of a student and not the staff.

"We have held assemblies about this and the students have gone away and found out more about it and we had over 800 children involved in this.

"Mr Hague has signed one of the sheets and said it was fantastic the children had got involved and he spoke to Emma."

Mr Hague has promised to present the scarf to Prime Minister David Cameron in London.

Details on the scheme are at www.sendmyfriend.org/one-goal.