YOUNGSTERS at an East Yorkshire school have literally turned over a new leaf with a little help from a familiar face.

ITV Yorkshire TV vet Matthew Brash dropped in at Pocklington School to plant an elm tree as part of the Great British Elm experiment.

The tree Mr Brash planted was a disease resistant strain donated to the school by The Conservation Foundation.

The reason behind the visit was that 2010 is the International Year Of Biodiversity and Pocklington School has been chosen as one of the first 250 schools to take part in the Conservation Foundation’s tree experiment.

Closely observed by the Junior Science Club, the sapling has been planted near the school’s biology labs where it can be monitored by staff and pupils over the coming years. Successive generations of pupils will be monitoring and caring for the elm tree as it develops from a sapling into a mature tree in an experiment to unlock the mystery of why some trees survived Dutch elm disease, which has killed 25 million of the trees from the 1960’s onwards.

Paul Bennett, the school bursar, said: “We are delighted to have been chosen to be one of the first schools to join the experiment. “We applied for an elm because we will be celebrating the quincentenary of the foundation of Pocklington School in 2014 and to mark the event will be planting 500 trees on the school site over the next five years as a living bequest to future generations of pupils.

“If this tree survives it will be transplanted in 2014 as the last act of this commemoration of our foundation.” As well as being a TV vet, Matthew has a small animal, horse and exotic animal practice based at three sites just outside York, at Stamford Bridge, Strensall and Pocklington.