Students from Oxford University’s Trinity College have helped pay for a new sensory garden at a special school in Wheatley.

John Watson School, where the new garden has been created, caters for children with special educational needs.

The £5,000 project, funded by the college’s Junior Common Room committee and college alumni, took six months to design and complete.

The garden, opened on Tuesday, includes benches, planters, murals and tubes through which children can talk to their friends.

Sally Withey, headteacher of the Wheatley Park campus, said: “It is so pleasing to see the garden completed and the looks on the children’s faces as they sit, relax and play in it.”

Marianne Lagrue, JCR member, said: “Students can become quite enclosed and closed off to the outside world and it is important for us to remember how incredibly privileged we are.”