Onchan School hub students have used their creative skills to lift children’s spirits up after the not-so-nice experience of being swabbed during the pandemic.

The key workers’ children have worked hard to spread some hope throughout the island community by making Bravery Awards, which are made colourful with their drawings of rainbows, butterflies, lions and superheroes.

These awards have been lifting the spirits of young ones who go through the uncomfortable process of being swabbed with their samples being tested for coronavirus.

The idea was brought to the school by a member of the swabbing team, Wendy Cain, a nurse whose children attend the school.

She said: ’After swabbing a three-year-old, I realised that the bravery certificates was a bit "every day" and thought it would be a nice touch for children to design bravery certificates for children that needed to be swabbed.

’I asked my children’s school if they would be interested in designing them and by the end of the very same day they had designed two each and produced the beautiful certificates in the photos.

’It just a nice thing to give them after entering their home in full scary personal protective equipment (PPE) and swabbing them - which is not a nice experience for them really.’

The Onchan School hub has 20 students while also sharing the grounds with Ashley Hill and Laxey and Dhoon primary schools, which are all separated into their own sections.

Headteacher Jo Richardson said the students were ’super excited’ to be given the opportunity to do something ’extra special’ for the island community during the pandemic.

They are well versed in creating awards already, as the school gets its pupils to design the school’s Learning Hero Awards each year.

She said: ’As soon as the activity was explained they were full of ideas, which we discussed together.

’The main ideas they decided upon were they had to be bright, maybe contain superheroes or lions (for bravery) and include pictures that make people smile such as rainbows, butterflies and hearts.

’The children felt that putting doctors and hospital related pictures on was not appropriate as they thought it was important to distract people from what was happening.

’We were very proud of how thoughtful and sensitive their ideas were.’

The students’ designs were then printed and laminated for the nursing team.

She added: ’We have worked hard to be an intrinsic part of our community and the whole school team are proactive at supporting many local initiatives.

’As a school since the pandemic started we have designed rainbows for the Intensive Care Unit, pictures for a local coffee shop and started an Onchan Animal Safari in our local school community.

’We are always looking for how we be a positive force within the community, especially at a time like this.’