AN INVERKEITHING High School art teacher launched hundreds of tiny boats all over the world to teach her pupils about kindness.

Kathryn Brown sent 400 plywood boats to everyone from famous artists to friends’ toddlers to be decorated in any way they liked before returning them to her.

The idea was to show her class how generous people can be and she said: “Boats have been given to everyone from the brilliant artist and playwright John Byrne to the lady who cleans my classroom. I have sent a boat to Antarctica, and 40 to a Spanish school.

“They’ve gone to Sweden, Holland, Germany, America and Denmark. And our little boats sailed with the Japanese Peace Boat, winners of the Nobel Peace prize.

"With all the horrors that children see online these days, I wanted to show them that the world can be a kind place as well as a violent place.”

The boats’ simple shape is a tribute to the late Scots artist, George Wyllie – who famously put a giant paper boat on the Clyde – and the 400 hand-decorated ships will be displayed in Dunfermline before the next phase of their journey.

“I am thinking of sending the boats out for another year, with the aim of gathering 2,000, as this was the number of ‘dazzled’ boats that existed between the first and second world wars,” added Kathryn.

"This would also tie in nicely with the centenary of the armistice in 2018.

“The fleet that is emerging says everything about the positivity, kindness, generosity and good spirit of people that I wanted to show.”

The exhibition runs from December 9 at Workspace Dunfermline.