THE children and staff of Vange Primary School will be presenting an exhibit at the World War One exhibition at Wat Tyler Country Park at the end of September.

Following their visit to Passchendaele in May, a group of children and staff felt they would be able to recreate the Falls the Shadow sculpture, a ‘forest of arms’ created as a tribute to the losses of young New Zealand men on the Western Front.

The trip to Passchendaele was part of the Basildon Twinning Association Forget Never Project which will continue at the Wat Tyler exhibition, and is where the school’s sculpture will be on display.

The children, staff, and governors and parents’ association were joined by the Basildon Twinning Association and Heritage Society in coming together to contribute to the project, which now consists of around 300 hands with each one representing a fallen soldier of Basildon from the First World War.

The artwork is being jointly funded by the school and the Twinning Association via their Lottery funding. The school also received the help of Waxy Hands, who spent five days making the hands with the students and staff and putting together the finished product.

After the exhibition at Wat Tyler Country Park, a section of the installation will be taken to the Houses of Parliament where it will be displayed in November as part of its commemoration of the centenary of the First World War. The school will also be putting the sculpture forward for consideration for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 2019.