A LANGUAGE college in Rawtenstall has teamed up with a school in Datong in China to form a friendship link.

And the connection should be cemented next spring when the two schools exchange teachers.

When All Saints RC High School achieved the status of language college part of its plans were to introduce taster sessions in Mandarin Chinese.

Rossendale Coun Geoffrey Atkinson has just returned from a visit to Datong, with the news the school was hoping for and a plaque to officially recognise the link.

He said: "I was in China for a week-long visit and we were hoping to find a school to link with the language college we were pleased to be able to set it up so quickly and I am very excited about it."

All Saints with its 600 students aged 11 to 16 in 21 classes is a bit different to Datong School Number Three with its 3,400 student both juniors and seniors who are in 48 classes.

Deputy head of All Saints Mike Vizzard said: "Geoff has been involved in a variety of capacities in our school and is very supportive of us.

"He knew we wanted to link up with schools around the world as part of being a language college and told me about his visit to China.

"He took with him a letter from the school explaining all about us and he has come back successfully with a signed partnership agreement.

"We will now be communicating via e-mail to exchange is ideas and hopefully we will be able to look at and exchange of staff in Spring 2003."

The Chinese trip also forged existing links between the East Lancashire Railway and the major railway manufacturing city of Datong, first established in 1989.

Now the city is setting up one of the largest steam loco museums in the world and so a delegation of council officials and members from Bury and railway representatives from ELR, including director Trevor Jones, also visited China with Coun Atkinson.