Poppyscotland design finalists

Two primary schools in the north have been shortlisted in this year’s Poppyscotland Learning Competition – celebrating the centenary of the end of the First World War.

Pupils from Laxdale Primary School on the Isle of Lewis and Staffin Primary School on the Isle of Skye are two of six schools shortlisted by the judges in the charity’s ‘Poppy Places and Spaces’ design competition.

Entrants have been tasked to produce an area of remembrance and reflection – either indoors or outdoors – by hand, by computer of by using appropriate media.

Laxdale Primary School has focused on the revival of an area around an old bench, which would be painted and be decorated by hand-made wooden poppies. A mural would sit above the bench and the project would seek to commemorate the tragic war-time story of the wreck of the boat Iolaire which claimed 200 lives just yards off the coast of the Isle of Lewis.

Meanwhile Staffin Primary School plan to refurbish an existing memorial area, which has become tired and underused. The area would feature a Poppythemed gate and a bog garden to represent the muddy conditions of the First World War, as well as the idea for poppy-shaped benches and a flower bed. One of the pupils has a great-great-grandfather who died during the Great War and has no grave. This fallen soldier would be remembered at the site, too.

Isla Campbell Lupton, the Learning and Outreach Manager at Poppyscotland, said: “We challenged schools to design a Poppy Place and Space – an area for Remembrance and reflection. Designs could have been produced by hand, by computer or using appropriate mixed media.”

Members of the public can vote for the entrants until May 11.