PUPILS at Orchid Vale Primary School have brightened up their school after painting a new mural.

All 350 pupils and staff from the school in Torun Way decorated their plain white boarding which was put up to obscure the building work of a new extension.

They decided to paint eye-catching murals on each of the boards representing the school’s important principles such as unity, peace and tolerance.

The paint was donated by the Dulux Let’s Colour project via the Dulux Decorator Centre, in Hobley Drive, after headteacher Debbie Kalynka nominated the project online.

She said: “Thanks to the paint donation from the Let’s Colour project, we’ve been able to let every single one of our pupils leave a mark on our school.

“The boards have been transformed from dull eyesores to vibrant pieces of artwork which clearly reflect our school’s Values for Life. Once the building work is finished we will be displaying these boards around the school permanently.

“The artwork will serve as a physical reminder to our pupils of the discussions we had about values such as tolerance, unity, courage and trust, which should hopefully help us all to live these values each day.”

Each board was painted with a different coloured tree by parents and community volunteers, with the name of the value over the top, with a class responsible for each different board.

Classes at the school are given an animal name, and these animals were added to the boards, for example a bumblebee features on the ‘courage’ board and a butterfly represents ‘tolerance’.

The donation from Dulux was part of the Let’s Colour mission to add colour to people’s lives. For more information visit www.letscolour.co.uk.