A TEAM of 25 friends from a Bournemouth primary school have signed up to support Julia’s House by running at this year’s Bournemouth Marathon Festival (BMF) in October.

The year 5 pupils at Muscliff Primary School will be taking part in the Junior Races at the BMF, which is expected to attract more than 10,000 people to the town on October 3 and 4.

Many pupils have already started fundraising and will be holding cake sales as well as a host of activities.

Julia’s House is the only children’s hospice charity in Dorset dedicated to helping life-limited children and their families across the county and in South Wiltshire.

The charity's Challenge Fundraiser Steve Mills, said: “This is our third year at the marathon festival and we are looking forward to even more young people getting involved in 2015!

“To have to have 25 class friends from one school all running and raising money for us is exciting and inspiring. We’d love them help us raise even more than the £50,000 we raised at the Marathon Festival in 2014.”

Pupil Mia Attreed, nine, said: “I am really excited to take part with my class friends in the run, for many of us it is the first time we will run this far.

“We are all going meet up in the summer for practice runs and have some fun exercising classes. We have already started fundraising and we hope we can raise lots of money for Julia’s House.”

The junior races start at Bournemouth Prom and finish near the BMF Hub in the Lower Gardens. This year’s races, held in association with Active Dorset, will take place from 2pm on Saturday, October 3, ahead of the Supersonic 10k and Speed of Light 5k and one day before the half marathon and marathon. For more information for all six races, visit run-bmf.com