HUNDREDS of pupils cheered on schoolmate Oscar Hughes as he completed the final lap of a marathon relay run at a York primary school.

Dunnington Primary School staged its own version of the Plusnet Yorkshire Marathon yesterday to help Oscar – who underwent surgery to remove a brain tumour earlier this year – raise thousands of pounds for a children’s cancer charity.

All 237 children and 15 members of staff took part, each running about 190 metres across the school playing fields to complete a collective 26.2 miles, said Oscar’s mother, Marie.

She said Oscar, eight, speed-walked the final 190 metres to deafening cheers from the rest of the school. “It was amazing,” she said. “The atmosphere was brilliant.”

Ben Reid, a friend of the Hughes family, who with his wife Sharon helped to organise the event, said: “There wasn’t an adult with a dry eye.”

Oscar, who has just undergone the third out of eight cycles of chemotherapy following his 11–hour operation, has already raised more than £2,800 for Yorkshire Candlelighters through selling balloons at Dunnington Fair in July.

Marie said almost £2,000 had been raised through the marathon and she hoped that would eventually rise to £3,000.

She said that she, Sharon and several other women, mostly mothers of children at the school - Sarah Gray, Pandy Maxton, Sarah Maxton, Charlotte Sweeting, Zoe Cresswell, Debbie Taylor and Helen Tolworthy – would be taking part in a relay version of the Yorkshire Marathon in York this coming Sunday.

The school’s head teacher, Caroline Hancy, has told previously how Oscar has been an inspiration to everyone at Dunnington Primary, adding: “We extremely proud of him.”

To make a donation, go to http://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/dunningtonprimaryschoolmarathon

• Oscar is a finalist in The Press’ Community Pride Child of the Year award ceremony, to be held on Thursday evening.