YOUNGSTERS took time out from the classroom to strengthen their school's links with local businesses and help smarten up their environment at the same time.

Pupils from Walter Street Primary School, Brierfield, have been working with metal-working firm North Valley Forge to design four metal panels that will be attached to railings surrounding a millennium oak tree recently planted in Brierfield.

The pupils visited North Valley Forge's premises on Whitewalls Industrial Estate, Colne, to see the finished articles. More than 100 students took part in the design scheme and 20 of them were given the chance to visit the firm and enjoy a tour of the Junction Street factory.

The panels, which feature plants and animals, will help make the millennium oak site next to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal a focal point.

The pupils' work was done as part of a school-industry link scheme funded by Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) cash and co-ordinated by the Business Environment Association and Groundwork East Lancashire.

Alan Balmforth of North Valley Forge is pictured showing pupils, clockwise from the left, Mehvish Hussain, Samera Nuzisi, Aqsa Shafiq, Hanifa Anayat and Saba Hussain, how metal rods are made into wrought ironwork, watched by John Fish from Groundwork

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