A SPECIAL place of calm and reflection has been provided for pupils at Cerne Abbas First School.

A spiritual garden shaped like a Celtic cross has been dug into the school’s hillside garden, where children are already cultivating fruit and veg and nurturing creepy-crawlies in their insect hotel.

The gravel cross has a solar powered orb water feature at its centre with wooden benches at its head and arms carved with the school motto ‘love to learn, learn to love, respect the world’.

Wedge-shaped flowerbeds planted by children from years three and four complete the Celtic design and as the finishing touch, footprints from this year’s Year Four leavers have been set in concrete inside the cross.

The Rev Canon Karen Curnock, foundation governor of the school, also left her footprints at the head of the cross as she is leaving the village after seven years and retiring to Devon.

She said: “We were sitting round a table chatting about the idea of the garden and saying how we would like it in the shape of a cross because we are a church school.

“We wanted to have a spiritual garden area so the children could have somewhere where they could slow down and have a place for quiet reflection.

“The children are thrilled by it and have been using it already. They love the solar-powered water feature, which we installed because we are an eco-school.”

Once the design had been finalised Cerne Abbas resident Nick Williams-Ellis, a Chelsea Flower Show award-winner, put it to scale and helped build it assisted by Alan Goddard from Goddard Landscapes.

The garden quickly found the approval of Cerne Abbas pupils.

Oliver, a Year Four student said: “It is really cool and we like to go and sit there.”

Senior teaching assistant Mo Chutter added: “The garden is where they children don’t have to be running about. It is where they can be quiet and reflective and enjoy moments of wonder.”