Children at St Paul's create'¨a mural with a local artist

The mural stretches across the main entrance to St Paul’s and represents the school with images of children and use of the school slogan.

Iconic landmarks in Portsmouth such as the Spinnaker Tower, HMS Victory and Fratton Park all make an appearance.

Owen, Rezz, Ozzy, Carys, Tilly, Hayden and Lucy from years one to six worked with artist Doug Cole to bring the mural to life.

The children took their ideas to meetings with Doug who would then draw them up.

Doug said: ‘I think what the children enjoyed the most was giving me their input and then seeing it come to life on the wall.

‘Even the teachers came up with ideas, so I wanted to make sure that what I designed had something for everyone.’

Doug started painting the mural in September last year and completed it in January.

The children’s ideas were mostly inspired by their school’s values and Portsmouth as a whole.

The mural includes an image of a young girl praying, highlighting St Paul’s as a Catholic school.

It also has the school’s mission statement, ‘Do Everything With Love’, written on it, in flowers across grass.

Other parts of the mural, which were personal favourites for some of the children, showed two foxes playing together – symbolising friendship, plus balloons with the mission statement also written on them being let off into the sky.

Brenda Schouller, headteacher at St Paul’s, said: ‘The area at the front of the school was just a dull, cream board and I wanted something welcoming to be put there which said, ‘this is St Paul’s’.

‘I really wanted the children to create it, because this is all about what’s important to them.

‘The children really enjoyed coming up with their own ideas and they loved seeing Doug every day.

‘Now we have something special that will be there for years to come.’