A Tennessee teacher suffering from an aggressive form of cancer has been serenaded by more than 400 students and members of staff from his school.

After the school learnt that Ben Ellis had decided to discontinue his treatment for oesophagal cancer, lessons were stopped, everyone got on the school buses and drove to the Nashville teacher's house.

The father-of-five described the singing as "amazing" and that he felt he as "not alone".

The Latin teacher added: "It overwhelmed me that God would fill that many students with that much love, not just for me but also for one another. We had this community that was built on loving one another, instead of worried about self."

Nate Morrow, headteacher at Christ Presbyterian Academy, said Mr Ellis had taken comfort in hymns throughout his battle with cancer, and that the idea to serenade him was the school's way of showing the popular teacher that they "loved him".

Mr Ellis' wife, Shelley told of how he had received numerous cards from "elementary students through students he taught ten and fifteen years ago", and that the impromptu performance "was wonderful and was more than we could have imagined or thought of".