THE sun may not be making much of an appearance this summer, but a pair of schoolgirls are making sure there is plenty of sunshine in their classroom.

Year 6 pupils Harriet Boulton and Emma Pocock decided to set up a sponsored sunflower challenge at Lainesmead School, after seeing an article about the charity Feed The Children in a children's newspaper.

As a result, the two 11- year-olds were inspired to bring the Big Grow challenge to their Walcot school.

But when they got chatting to Feed The Children fundraiser Miranda Parker via e-mails the pair decided they wanted to know more about the organisation's work and her job in particular.

Year 6 pupils at the school have been taking part in a project aimed at raising their aspirations for later life and have spent time interviewing local professionals at the University of Bath.

So the duo invited Miranda to meet Year 5 and 6 pupils to tell them about her job, while boosting money-raising efforts for the Big Grow challenge.

Teacher Leigh Timbrell said: "It was a combination of being in the gardening club, wanting to do something to help less fortunate children and our raising aspirations project.

"We don't want to focus on making money' careers, it's about the variety of things out there.

"Harriet and Emma really have arranged all of this themselves, and it is fantastic of them to have done that."

Harriet, who was partly inspired by her brother who does charity work in Africa, said: "We have been thinking about dreams and in doing that we've been talking about jobs."

Emma said: "Our teacher showed us the children's newspaper and the Big Grow was in it.

"We e-mailed them and Miranda sent us the pack and the sponsorship forms.

"The sunflowers aren't doing too well.

"We put them in the garden this week but they've been in pots for about two weeks and we've only got until the end of term because that's when we leave the school."