Pupils in Montrose Academy’s ceramics club have created a fantastic clay sculpture of the front of their school.
The work took 18 months to produce and was recently framed and presented to head teacher Dr John Cavanagh. Principal teacher of expressive arts Peter Allan started the club four years ago with the help of school technician Simon Needham.
Mr Needham came up with the idea of creating the sculpture after the subject of a secret stairway to the school dome came up in a discussion during pottery club.
The pupils tried to guess where it was in the school and decided the only way to find out its location was to make a three-dimensional model of the school.
Although its construction was completed before the summer holidays last year, the work had to undergo a slow drying process to ensure it did not crack.
It was fired in November then a suitable glaze was produced with all of the pottery club members had a hand in the glazing work. The clay version, just like the real school, has a 24-carat gold dome.
Mr Allan said: “It has not been decided yet where the final piece will go on display, but we hope that it will be able to be appreciated by pupils, staff and visitors to the school for many years to come.”
As a reward for producing such a fine piece of work, the pupils involved were sworn to secrecy on the location of the secret stairway and were allowed to have a very rare visit to the inside of the school dome.