A PEACEFUL garden is to be created at a primary school in memory of a pupil who died from an asthma attack.

Sports-mad Jessica Anders, aged nine, died after suffering the attack at her home in Lincoln Avenue, Little Lever.

Bowness Primary School is to transform an internal garden into a magical place where youngsters can spend quiet time in remembrance of the youngster.

The walls of the multi-sensory garden will be be painted with pictures of dolphins and flowers, which were a special love of Jessica.

The garden will have benches and a memorial plaque from Bolton Wanderers, as Jessica was a huge fan of the club. It will be a place that youngsters with disabilities at the school can also benefit from.

Headteacher Denise Cooney said: "Jessica was a model pupil -- she was everything you could have ever want. She encapsulated everything that Bowness means and that's something very special."

Mrs Cooney has sent letters to local DIY businesses appealing for help to create the garden. The school gardening club will also have a hand in bringing the area to life.

Mrs Cooney said returning to school for the new term without Jessica had been very hard. On the first day of the school year she held a special assembly in which a minute's silence was observed for the tragic youngster.

She added: "It's been very hard. We have known Jessica ever since she started in reception. We still have her little brother Cameron here, and we have maintained the links and support with her family.

"It's been devastating for everybody. We all went to the funeral."

Mrs Cooney said she hoped the garden, which is in an internal courtyard, would be opened as soon as possible.

Jessica was a lively and active youngster, despite having to take a cocktail of drugs to deal with the severe asthma she had suffered from since the age of four.

She was about to start her second season at Little Lever Football Club when the tragedy happened. She loved football so much that she was buried wearing her favourite England kit.

Jessica woke on the morning of August 3 feeling wheezy, and medication failed to improve her condition. While her mother Amanda was on the telephone to the ambulance service, she stopped breathing and fell off a kitchen stool.

All efforts to revive her failed.

Jessica's mother Amanda said she thought the memorial garden was a lovely thought.

She said: "The school has been wonderful and they have been really supportive to Jessica's brother."