Students at Lockwood Primary School have planted a Gallipoli Oak at a commemoration service in the lead up to Anzac Day.
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Principal Sally Rule said it came four years after the school created a memorial garden and avenue of honour at the school.
“It’s really important that our students appreciate the sacrifices of the past that helped to give us the freedoms we enjoy today,” she said.
The oak is one of 600 to be placed at schools by the Victorian branch of the National Trust of Australia, according to the group’s CEO Simon Ambrose.
“At the core of this project is the story of how a young Australian soldier, Captain Winter Cooke from Murndal, near Hamilton, noticed some unusual holly bushes while stationed at Gallipoli that had acorns like oak trees”, he said.
The soldier sent some home to an uncle who was interested in botany almost 100 years ago.
The 600 oaks being planted in schools where direct descendants of those acorns.