Hundreds of children at Beam County Primary have taken time out to bring Remembrance Day to life with their own Tower of London-inspired poppy installation.

The primary school, in Oval Road North, Dagenham, has been inspired by the Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red exhibition – 888,246 ceramic poppies created by artist Paul Cummins and placed in the Tower’s moat in central London.

Art teacher Sam Maisey said: “The kids have been collecting bottles, coat hangers and buttons to make poppies.

“We don’t have facilities like the Tower of London where we can make them out of clay.”

Each poppy has two leaves – one containing the maker’s name, and one with the words “I will remember” followed by the name of a dead veteran, taken from one of the borough’s cenotaphs. The school will lay the 750 “flowers”, made by nursery to year six pupils, in the ground outside.

And a special assembly will take place outside the school on Armistice Day.

Miss Maisey said the display was intended “to make the children realise the significant numbers that died, and to make everyone aware of what the soldiers and their families gave up 100 years ago”.