THE devastation caused by a lightning strike at St Katharine's Primary in Savernake is a thing of the past after the school replaced all the equipment that was destroyed from the incident.

The primary school was left reeling last August when more than 80 per cent of the once 47m-high oak tree was struck by lightning, causing vast chunks of it to fall down which crushed tens of thousands of pounds worth of play equipment and their sewage system.

Slowly but surely however, the school has purchased a new wooden trail, play tower, a climbing frame, monkey bars and a swinging log among other things and now the schoolchildren are able to enjoy the school grounds once more.

"Everyone is so pleased that everything is pretty much back to normal and they are so excited to enjoy their new playing equipment," said headteacher Niki Jones.

"Losing our huge 500-year-old oak tree was very sad. Everyone was in shock to have this huge oak that was in the centre of our grounds brought down like that.

"The tree was a symbol of our school. Our motto of 'From little acorns, great oaks grow' was so apt so to not have the oak was awful. It was a difficult time for all of us.

"They had to cut large parts of it down as it was deemed unsafe the way it was. All the debris was cleared fairly quickly. For a couple of months the children were using an outdoor toilet while the repair works took place, there was not much play equipment and much of our grounds were cordoned off for safety reasons but now that is a thing of the past thankfully.

"Although it is much shorter than it was, we are hoping that branches and leaves will grow from it once again. We have tried to recreate what we had before with the play equipment and the attempt to do that has been really good.

"We are also hopeful that we can use the timber from the tree to make some benches to remember the tree and also create some planks to go as book shelves in our library. So although this was a bad situation we are coming out of it stronger."

The headteacher also thanked Wiltshire Council for their help in replacing their equipment.

"Thankfully the insurance covered it all but Wiltshire Council were very helpful in getting everything sorted and getting us through this crisis," she added.