Did you know that Merseyside has the oldest Chinese community in the UK? At our parish primary school, All Saints, we are keen to foster links with other schools and in the first week of February 2007 we welcomed 27 children and ten staff from our partner school of Backu in central China.

East meets West in All Saints School

Our visitors, only the second official primary school group to leave China, arrived at Manchester Airport after a 36 hour flight. Undaunted, they changed into their beautiful regional dress costumes for a wonderful concert which they gave to our parish family. It was fantastic and everyone enjoyed their skill and professionalism. They joined us for a trip to the seaside at Crosby and our visitors enjoyed their first experience of the sea; they also enjoyed seeing the sun and the clear blue 'Scouse' skies. However, their greatest delight was the chips!!! We offered a full Chinese banquet, but pizza and chips won out! They had limited English and we had even less Mandarin, but the smiles show our ability to communicate across the divide.

They went on to visit Stratford, London and Edinburgh, as part of this exchange trip organised by the British Council. The month of May will see Bootle invade Belgium, as a party of staff and children visit a school outside Brussels. In June, a group from our Hungarian partnership will visit the UK and our Year 6 will take them to our Savio House Retreat Centre in Bollington for the weekend. Meanwhile, in March three teachers and three Governors will join two officers from Sefton Metropolitan Borough Council to formally link All Saints Catholic Primary School to San Carlos School in Monterey, California - another successful fruit of our recent parish mission.

With the Government advocating a change in approach to the teaching of modern foreign languages, it is good to see us leading the way.