Derbyshire schoolchildren decorate trees with wooden stars dedicated in memory of their deceased loved ones

Woodbridge Junior School children dedicate wooden star to lost loved one. Front Millie-Jane Rungay, Alanya Whitmoore, Ebony Flint and Archie Clarke, back Emma Hanson headteacher, Matt Black Twisted wood and Lesley Turner pastoral lead at Woodbridge.

The pupils at Woodbridge Junior School, in Alfreton, dedicated the trees before the end-of-term after each choosing who they would like to commemorate.

Pastoral lead Lesley Turner said the idea came about after the school was given dozens of tree saplings for its Forest School area shortly after the first Covid-19 lockdown.

The school now hopes that, as the saplings grow, the children will be able to visit the trees and remember their lost loved ones.

Mrs Turner said: “We’ve got quite a lot of bereaved children, not necessarily from Covid, but we seem to have in what will be our Year 5 group a lot of bereaved children.

"We’ve got children who have lost parents, we’ve got ones that have lost siblings and cousins, and ones that have lost grandparents and great-grandparents as well.

"We’d had a few in a short period of time and they were quite upset so I talked to them and Mrs White who runs our Forest School with Mr Simpson and they’d been given a load of saplings so the children said they’d like to do something to remember their loved ones.

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"That’s where the idea came from, because the trees will be here permanently.

"For me it’s been a bit of an eye opener because the youngest we’ve got is 13, who was one of the pupils’ cousins.”

After confirming the idea, Lesley says she reached out to Matlock-based carpenter Matt Black, of Twisted Wood, to ask how much it cost to create 100 wooden stars to hang on the trees.

But, she was shocked when he later sent a big box of wooden stars to Woodbridge Junior School free of charge.

"It was so nice of him,” Lesley added. “Following a second lockdown and everything else the children have now dedicated them and hung them on the saplings, there are commemorations for very young people to some who are near a 100-years-old.

"Mr Black donating us all those stars really was a lovely thing, and we hear of so much rubbish it’s nice to know there are still kind people in the world.”

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