DOZENS of volunteers at a bank have helped transform a school’s nature reserve.

Over the course of a week 75 employees at Santander branches in the district visited the Academy at St James in Allerton, Bradford, to work on the overgrown site on school grounds.

Home to a spring, the site is protected, but because little work has been done to maintain the site in recent years it has been inaccessible to pupils.

The volunteers have now turned the reserve into an area that can be used by pupils for a variety of lessons.

Head teacher Chris Tolston said: “It was overgrown and full of rubbish. It is protected as there is a natural spring there. The volunteers helped clear it all out, it was a real community effort.

“We have wanted it to be a place where children can learn about nature, but until this work it wasn’t a place children could use.

“It was a huge job, and the children had given them ideas about what they wanted to see done to the area.”

Bank staff have also been giving pupils the benefit of their expertise with lessons on money management.