A PUPIL who dressed up as his teacher - his sporting hero - has managed to raise more than £300 for an Oxford-based charity by doing a sponsored park run.

Ethan Baynes, from Bicester dressed up as his teacher Richard Laurie at his school, King’s Meadow Primary, and raised £327.50 for Helen & Douglas House.

Ethan chose Mr Laurie, who is also from Bicester, as his sporting hero for Sports Relief Day last month because he ran the London Marathon last year and raised £4,064 for Helen & Douglas House which had cared for his son Thomas Laurie.

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In 2007 Thomas was diagnosed with an extremely rare genetic condition called Cockayne Syndrome which causes premature ageing and life expectancy is severely shortened.

Thomas died on February 19, 2014 at Helen & Douglas House hospice, aged nine years old.

The hospice provided specialist care and support for Thomas and his family and end-of-life care when it was needed.

Ellie, Thomas’ older sister, joined The Elephant Club, a club for siblings, offering counselling and the opportunity to have fun and share experiences with other children who have, or had, a brother or sister with a life-shortening condition.

Ethan said: "For sport relief, my school have invited us to dress up as our sporting hero. My hero is Mr Laurie because he ran the London Marathon and raised lots of money for Helen & Douglas House.

"I’m inspired by him because he trained really hard just to raise money for others and not to be rich and famous.

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"Mr Laurie has inspired me to have a growth mindset in all I do and I enjoyed dressing up as him.

"I would love to raise a bit of money to be just like him and I ran my Park Run in Bicester in my ‘Mr Laurie’ costume and set my new personal best time."

Ethan ran the 5K Park Run in 14.29 minutes beating his previous record of 17.11 minutes.

Alison Hooker, community fundraising manager at Helen & Douglas House, said: "It was so wonderful that Ethan choose Richard as his sporting hero and choose to raise money for Helen & Douglas House to help other children like Thomas.

"Richard has raised over £20,000 for us in the last two years by taking part in many fundraising events including the Oxford Half Marathon and our Rainbow Run, so he is one of our heroes too.

"A massive congratulations to Ethan for beating his personal best running time at the Park Run and raising so much money for our charity which is hugely appreciated. What an amazing young man he is."

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Ethan has so far exceeded his £100 fundraising target.

If you would like to help him continue to raise money for Helen & Douglas House you can donate on his Just Giving page at www.justgiving.com/fundraising/EthanBaynes.

From Friday, March 20, all of the charity's shops closed until further notice due to the coronavirus pandemic.

It has cancelled all planned respite care but is continuing to operate a service at the hospice and in the community in order to deliver care to those children who require complex symptom management and end of life care.