CHILDREN at a school in Crowthorne ended their academic year in a blaze of glory – by setting fire to one of their projects on the playing fields.
Year 2 pupils at Oaklands Infants School, in Butler Road, whooped and cheered as buildings they had created out of cardboard and paper as part of a Great Fire of London project went up in flames on the last day of term.
Thanks to windy conditions on the day, the fire took less than 15 minutes to completely destroy the children’s buildings, including a scaled-down version of St Paul’s Cathedral, which they had spent a day creating as part of the term-long project.
Carefully overseen by the school’s site controller Paul Munson, outgoing headteacher Julie Sheppard and other members of staff, the fire demonstrated to the children just how quickly the fire spread from a bakery in Pudding Lane in September 1666.
Miss Sheppard, who was celebrating her last day before retiring on Friday, July 21, said: “It is always a fun project for the children on their last day before moving up to the junior school, a lot of children do remember this day for years to come.
“But it is also a timely reminder for the children about how dangerous fire is and how quickly it can burn out of control.”
