REMEMBRANCE and the First World War were the key themes as Abbeyfield School in Chippenham played host to seven students and two members of staff from Germany as part of a national project.

The pupils from Bischöfliches Gymnasium Josephinum, Hildesheim near Hanover, all aged between 14 and 16, stayed with host families for a week.

The British students and their German guests attended a reception in the school library with the deputy Lord Lieutenant of Wiltshire Mr William Wyldbore-Smith, Chippenham mayor councillor David Powell, Chippenham MP Michelle Donelan, the chair of Chippenham Civic Society Isabel Blackburn, Major Jon Wort, local historian Richard Broadhead and Abbeyfield headteacher Ian Tucker.

After the reception, students and invited guests laid floral tributes, made up by school librarian Jackie Sage, and poppy crosses in a moving ceremony at eight of the marked First World War graves at Chippenham cemetery in London Road.

The visit also included a trip to London's Imperial War Museum, the HMS Belfast and a bespoke tour of Salisbury Plain by Major Wort and Mr Broadhead.

As part of their day on the Plain, students saw the arborglyphs, visited the site of the drill trenches, saw a First World War machine gun being fired and dressed in WW1 uniforms.

The trip to Chippenham was supported by a grant from UK-German Connection, a German government initiative to foster partnerships, programmes and networks for schools and youth groups, and organised by Abbeyfield teachers Deborah Wiltshire and John Ward. The visit followed a hugely successful visit to Hildesheim and Berlin by Abbeyfield staff and students in February.

Elsewhere at the school, pupils Chloe Thomson, Aaron Booth and Joe Whiteside have won first prize in a Chippenham Borough Lands Charity website design and photography competition.

Trustees of the charity decided to hold a competition to design a new website open to all three secondary schools in Chippenham. Students interviewed staff, did field work and took photographs of the charities assets before preparing a business plan and presenting it to the charity.

Phil Tansley, executive officer of the Chippenham Borough Lands Charity said: “We wanted the students to have a real-life experience in this competition to actually bid for our business.”