STAFF from an Accrington high school are flying out to Portugal next week to cement a four-way European pupil partnership.

Accrington Moorhead High School has had a bid accepted by the European Union in Brussels to set up a multi-lateral partnership between schools in four different European countries.

Links have been established between Moorhead and schools in Romans in the South of France, Torres Novas which lies just north of Lisbon in Portugal, and Brussels at the heart of the European Union in Belgium.

Year 9 pupils will work on a common project based on an exchange of information about the climate in the area around each school. They will use information technology to pass information to each other using the Internet.

Then they will publish their results both for other pupils in the same year group within their own school, as well as for their European partners.

Next week, deputy head teacher David Smith, and curriculum manager for humanities, Yvonne Parr, will be flying out to Lisbon to meet their European colleagues to begin planning the work which will be carried out by pupils of the four schools.

The European Education project is called "Comenius - Action 1".

It aims to promote co-operation between schools in other countries, encourage contact between the pupils of member states, and improve knowledge of the culture and languages of the European Union.

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