A PRIMARY school teacher has bid farewell to her class and plans to embark on a trip of a lifetime to educate people on the other side of the world.

Walton-le-Dale Community Primary School teacher Gizelle Allin officially left her job on December 20 to jet off to Nigeria early next year on a two-year voluntary teaching trip.

To help fund the teacher's trip staff and pupils at the Severn Drive school raised around £200 through various fundraising events and presented her with a cheque at a special school assembly.

The Year 3 teacher, of Hunts Field, Whittle-le-Woods, near Leyland, will join members of the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) to teach maths and computers to children and African-educated tutors in a remote part of the country.

And with one computer run off a generator and few 'luxury' resources the 41-year-old teacher admits she will have her work cut out.

"I will be teaching in a very rural area," said Gizelle. "There is a possibility that there is not going to be a computer although they do have one at the moment.

"If that goes I will just have to teach the maths but it'll be nothing like it is here and I'm going to be training other teachers from round about as well as the children.

"I plan to keep in touch with all my friends and pupils here and let them know how I'm getting on although e-mail might be difficult.

"There have been hundreds of questions from the children in class and there's been lots of tears.

"I've always wanted to work overseas and spent two months in Tanzania in 1992. I'm really looking forward to this trip and have been doing a lot of weekend training for the last three months to prepare."

Tony Roberts, headteacher at Walton-le-Dale Community Primary, said: "Gizelle is an extremely good teacher and will be sadly missed," said Mr Roberts. "I'm very sorry to lose her but I'm very proud of what she is doing."

"It's a two-year life change and I have no doubt at all that it will give her skills she never knew she had while she is teaching children and the other teachers as well."