PUPILS at Court Fields Community School have come up with a huge range of ideas to benefit their school and the surrounding community as part of a new scheme called Youth Watch.

The scheme is similar to the Neighbourhood Watch scheme and it means that a group of students will be responsible for a number of issues around the school such as crime prevention, improving the environment, caring for animals and fire safety.

The project is being launched next month in conjunction with the police and a number of organisations including the RSPCA and Avon and Somerset Fire and Rescue Service, who will be working closely with pupils. Last week police officers spent a few hours with the children to draw up some ideas on how to improve their neighbourhoods.

Some of the ideas they came up with, such as community litter picks and graffiti walls, really impressed the officers and the students have now been writing to MPs and councillors to try and get funding for the scheme.

PC Tess Mills, beat officer for Wellington, said: "It was amazing, these children are so bright and new in their thinking and it was refreshing. Quite often young people in this day and age are written off. We just want people to see these are bright, intelligent, forward thinking children and they just need to be given a chance to be able to make a difference.

"It's about giving it to the children and saying it's your community as well, you watch it, you do something for it. I think a lot of bad behaviour comes out of children that are let down so much so we need to build them up and make them feel they are actually making a difference."

Other ideas included a sponsored walk to school day to cut pollution and a mechanic workshop for people interested in cars and motorbikes.

Youth watch is tied into the pupil's citizenship classes and the students from year seven to ten who have volunteered to move the scheme forward were announced yesterday (Wednesday).

The first task they will be tackling is crime prevention and the pupils will be security-marking property at the launch of the scheme on March 22 at the school.