A surprise partnership between HMP Wandsworth and a school for children with special needs and visual impairment is transforming people’s lives.

The project helps prisoners reform while improving the health and fitness of disabled children.

Every Wednesday morning, for about 90 minutes, as many as 12 pupils from Lindon Lodge school in Wimbledon Park use the gym facilities in HMP Wandsworth, working one-to-one with serving prisoners.

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The partnership has been going for more than a decade and has become a part of many prisoners’ rehabilitation and pupils’ physiotherapy. Some inmates have become so attached to the children they use their prison earnings to buy them biscuits.

Lindon Lodge teacher Ralph Bye said: “This is the highlight of the week for the prisoners and the pupils, partly because they get Penguins [biscuits] every week. They changed the gym here for us so we don’t have to go upstairs.

“We do special sensory mornings at the school, but it is all tied into what they do at [Lindon Lodge] because it is about how far they have walked or rowed.

“Sometimes they use free weights, and one prisoner developed a plan for one of the pupils who was quite strong. It is all about handling and grasping, even holding on to the machines.”

For the prisoners, the weekly gym sessions are a reminder of what they are missing with their own families, and provide a training ground for fatherhood.

One prisoner, who did not want to be named, said: “It puts things into context, we worry about our own children but we get to look after these children and it helps us a lot. We enjoy working with the kids, it is a good experience and it works both ways. They should have incentives like this in every prison.”

Lee Shooter, a prison officer who has worked in the service, for 22 years, said the scheme helped inmates put everything into perspective.

He said: “I cannot make the guys do this, I have had people get involved and then drop out because it is not for them. They reflect on what they are missing outside with their own kids.”

The prisoners recently raised more than £3,000 for the school by doing a sponsored, combined, 100,000km row in less than six hours.

A second prisoner, who also wanted to remain anonymous, said: “We get to prove our worth, we are really demonised and it makes us feel a lot more human.

“The sponsored row gave us a sense of purpose, we had a big day with the kids and we shook down everyone on the wings for sponsorship.”