VILLAGERS have been donating plants to a school after vandals wrecked the children's gardening project.

Children at Wool Church of England First School were heartbroken to find that the sunflowers and pumpkin seedlings they had planted in yoghurt pots had been kicked around the playground.

Grandparents of some of the children and some people from Wool who read about the incident in the Dorset Echo decided to donate some sunflowers to the school.

School secretary Denise Brown said: "It really was absolutely fantastic. The children were very excited to see how the sunflowers had grown over the summer holiday and now they are flowering beautifully."

She said that the children had written cards to say thank you for restoring their garden.

The plants were vandalised last term just before the children were going to plant them out for a sunflower-growing competition.

Year 3 teacher Sally Warburton said it was particularly upsetting because the children had been working on the project all term.

She said that she was in tears when she saw that the gardening project had been destroyed, and that the children were heartbroken.

Earlier this year a shed window was smashed at the school and stones from the butterfly garden were thrown into a pond.