GIANT caterpillars, centipedes and other amazing mini-beasts on a construction site perimeter fence have been unveiled to pupils from a primary school in Thornbury.

The artwork, created by year one and year two pupils from Manorbrook Primary School, sits proudly on the hoardings of the site which will become the Grace Care Centre at the end of the year.

The children responded to a challenge set by special development and construction team, Castleoak, which is building the new care centre for The Orders of St John Care Trust (OSJCT).

Castleoak invited the school to take part in the Ivor Goodsite hoarding competition, and with the classes studying nature, the pupils took the chance to decorate the hoarding with mini-beasts.

While at the site in Thornbury, the children learned about the importance of health and safety as they were treated to a presentation at the site by Paul Evans, Castleoak’s contracts manager.

“We had a fantastic visit and the children were really excited about seeing their drawings of creepy crawlies turned into a giant mural and used to decorate the hoardings,” said year two teacher Katie Webb.

“As well as seeing their artwork on display, the visit taught them a lot about construction work, health and safety, and later life.”

Seven-year-old Mia Ponting said: “It was great to see the bugs on the wall and I really enjoyed wearing the hard hat and finding out about what is happening on the building site.”

As well as touring the site, Jane Lunn, county sales support co-ordinator for OSJCT in Gloucestershire, told the children about what the building will look like when it is finished, who will live there and what will happen there.

Grace Care Centre will open in early 2018 and will see the Trust offering personalised 24 hour specialist dementia care in a comfortable, modern environment.

The new 70 bed dementia care centre will be split over three floors and will incorporate a number of features to promote reminiscence as therapy.

The home will be arranged in small "household" units, each having their own homely living area, with sitting room, kitchen and dining area.

The large single bedrooms will all have en suite shower and toilet facilities, although assisted bathrooms are also provided in each household.

Ms Lunn said: “When we open, we hope that the Grace Care Centre will play an important role in the community, caring for the local people or those who relocate here to be closer to family.

“It’s important to us to be part of the community and that’s why we worked with Castleoak and Manorbrook on this project, which has produced some fantastic, eye-catching and ever so slightly creepy crawlies!”

Mr Evans added: “We’ve really enjoyed welcoming the children to the site so they can see progress. It’s really important to Castleoak to make these positive relationships with our site neighbours.

“Manorbrook pupils have done a fantastic job and we’re really pleased with the site’s new look.”