PUPILS and staff at Huntington Community Primary School in Chester had a magical surprise when they went back to school after the Christmas holidays.

They arrived to discover the classroom corridors – previously blank – had been newly decorated with trees and well-known storybook character illustrations including the Gruffalo, Winnie the Pooh and Stickman.

It was all thanks to the efforts of one of the school's teachers, who gave up almost her entire Christmas holiday to spend time giving the corridors of the school – which moved into its present building in late 2018 – a creative look.

Nursery teacher Jo Inchley, who has been part of the teaching staff for two years but has worked in the school running art clubs for over 10 years, explained how she did it.

She said: "We moved to our new building in October 2018 and immediately I was keen to add colour to the corridors.

"After months of badgering I was allowed to get my paintbrush out and paint the walls.

"Each class at the school is named after a native tree so I have painted the tree that corresponds to the class name over each doorway.

"Our class, Nursery, are called seedlings and because we didn’t have a tree, I decided to paint our section of corridor with famous book characters like the Gruffalo, Superworm, Winnie the Pooh, Stickman, Elmer, Miffy, The Tiger Who Came To Tea and Room on the Broom.

"I came into school in the Christmas holidays and painted everything so that it would be a lovely surprise for the staff and children when they returned and it was!"