CHILDREN from Exbourne Primary School drew a term's worth of hard work to a close last week by finishing their contribution to the 'Golden Tapestry' —an international project to celebrate the Queen's commonwealth golden jubilee.

Students from 190 schools from around the commonwealth have been invited to create their own canvas as part of a huge tapestry, and Exbourne pupils put the finishing touches to their efforts last Thursday (December 18).

The finished tapestry will go on display at the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Australia in March 2006, with a series of exhibitions of the complete tapestry throughout the rest of the year.

Each school taking part has been given a theme and a month of the year to reflect in their contribution, and all the designs must show the local environment. The theme for Exbourne pupils was 'myths and legends' and their chosen month was September, which allowed them to incorporate representations of harvest into their design.

The pupils researched local legends and incorporated them into the design along with depictions of the Dartmoor landscape and the

animals of the Devon countryside.

Every child at the school has contributed something to the canvas, be it from a small leaf right up to the larger animals. The original ideas for Exbourne's contribution to the tapestry came together as a whole school project, with each of the three classes then working separately on their own section of the canvas.

The project follows on from the hugely successful UK Millennium Tapestry project, and aims to celebrate the Queen's 50 years as Head of the Commonwealth. Schools from other Commonwealth countries as diverse as Australia, the Falkland Islands, Kenya, Jamaica and Malaysia have already signed up to take part in the project.