SCHOOL friends of a four-year-old boy who died in a house fire at Margate are being given specialist help to come to terms with the tragedy. Taylor Clifft died in hospital within hours of the blaze breaking out.

His brother, Levi, who celebrated his fifth birthday the day before last Friday's blaze, was taken to Guy’s Hospital in London and is due to be transferred to the specialist burns unit at East Grinstead.

Firemen rescued both boys from under a bunk bed at the family home at Jennifer Gardens on Margate's Dane Valley Estate. Their mother, Rebecca, jumped from a first floor window and was caught by a neighbour before the fire brigade arrived.

Flowers, messages of sympathy and a photograph of the dead child have been laid outside the house as neighbours and friends mourn the loss. Staff, parents and pupils at Northdown Primary School, Cliftonville, where the brothers attended, were "devastated" said head teacher Jackie Cox.

A special school assembly has been held and a "remembering table" where the children can sit and think of the boys has been set up.

Mrs Cox added: “We have taken the advice of a psychologist and told all the children exactly what has happened. We are helping them come to terms with their grief and psychologists will be in school this week.

“Taylor was a lovely boy and everyone knew the brothers. The children have written get well cards for Levi and messages of sympathy for the family. We have laid flowers at the site of the fire on behalf of the children.

“Parents have been in the school in tears, and the staff are particularly distressed. We shut the nursery school on the afternoon after the fire because it was too emotional for staff to carry on.

“We are a close knit community and everyone looks out for their neighbours. It has hit us all hard.”