A former director of the world-famous Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew has opened a Lottery-funded pond at a Worcester school.

Professor Ghillean Prance, one of the UK’s most prominent botanists and ecologists, opened the pond at the River School.

The pond received £6,000 from the Big Lottery Fund after a recommendation from an ecological survey of the Droitwich Road school’s eight acres of grounds by A Rocha, an international conservation body.

The money was part of £2 million of good cause cash made available for improving the environment through protecting and creating wildlife habitats.

The pond was originally a centre for wildlife when the school was a horticultural college in the 1970s but had fallen into disrepair.

Pupils cleared the site of scrub and the school’s site manager Marc Cawte secured the funding to restore it to its former glory.

It now forms part of the school’s outdoor curriculum area and will enable pupils to see pond wildlife in action and try out pond dipping.

A ‘pond cam’ will monitor activity round the clock.

Richard Wood, the school’s headmaster, said: "Encouraging such wildlife habitats in our urban schools is really important for biodiversity and conservation.

"It is also helping us to realise our plans for outdoor curriculum.

"This will benefit our pupils and pupils from other schools, both here and internationally, who have no such facilities.”