Herts & Essex High School students take part in Rudolph Run to raise funds for Isabel Hospice in memory of much-loved teacher Jo Watson
A bobbing mass of red antlers was seen dashing through the… streets of Bishop’s Stortford as school students remembered a beloved teacher.
Almost 1,400 girls and boys at Herts & Essex High School took part in their annual Rudolph Run, spurred by a desire to support Isabel Hospice, which helped Jo Watson, the maths teacher who died from bowel cancer at the age of 37, at the end of her life.
Jo passed away peacefully at her parents’ home in Sandon at the end of October, accompanied by husband Will Taylor-Watson, her mother Katherine and her sister Georgina, one of her four siblings. She had been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer 16 months earlier.
On Tuesday (Dec 17), staggered in year groups, students headed off from the school in Warwick Road to run a sponsored mile around the surrounding streets.
Whilst the weather was gloomy – luckily there was no rain(deer) – the atmosphere was anything but.
A school spokesperson said: “Christmas songs, lots of laughter and general festive merriment were the order of the day as students and staff remembered what an important cause they were running for and how much Miss Watson would have enjoyed it herself.
“The running was all done by 11am, but the fundraising is definitely not! The total is currently standing at £2,422 and rising.”
The event was kicked off by organiser and PE teacher Lizzie Bellinger and Bishop’s Stortford and England Masters hockey player Pippa Bull. Students, former staff and partners helped to marshal the route.
On Thursday (Dec 19) afternoon, the school community is coming together for “an uplifting and joyful celebration of the Herts & Essex life of Miss Watson” – and the dress code is Christmas jumpers.
