A VISIT to the Mayor's parlour in the town hall provided just one of many cross-Atlantic experiences for exchange teacher, Miss Barbara Miller.

Miss Miller lives in Seattle, Washington but has spent the last three months working at Elms Bank High School.

Under a Fulbright Teacher Exchange Scheme, the 40-year-old teacher has swapped places with Joanna Emblem who works at the Ripon Avenue special school.

While Miss Miller has been learning about teaching methods in this country, her Whitefield counterpart has been doing her job in a mainstream high school in America.

Together with pupils from Elms Bank, Miss Miller was invited to Bury Town Hall to meet the Mayor and Mayoress of Bury, Coun Wilf Davison and his wife, Maureen.

Miss Miller, who has been teaching for 10 years, said: "I work in a mainstream school with all abilities and this experience enables us to learn about a different approach to things. We can compare and take back information about what works here.

"At Elms Bank I am working with students who are less able than the ones back home and I am learning how to approach their needs and strengths. I am also learning how we are all the same even in a different part of the world."

Miss Miller returns to America at Easter and Mrs Emblem will be back at Elms Bank after the Easter holidays.

She added: "It has been wonderful. The staff and students are all wonderful and they all seem to know me around school. I think it is probably because of my 'funny' accent! It really has been too short an experience."