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David Ellis, the head of York High School, with the school party on the Tanzania visit

STUDENTS from a school in York will get the chance to head out to Africa ahead of the 2012 Olympics.

Youngsters from York High School, in Acomb, which has more than 1,000 pupils, are taking part in a project called Dreams And Teams with a partner school in Tanzania.

The York school, which has sports college status, is one of dozens of schools from across the UK with specialist sports status to take part in such partnership schemes in about 50 countries worldwide in the run up to London 2012.

York High's deputy head, Gavin Cowley, along with head teacher David Ellis and teacher Sarah Tosney, have already visited their partner school, Korogwe Girls School in North Tanzania, to see how links can be developed and lessons learned on both sides.

They drew up an action plan for the next three years of how ties between the two schools can be fostered.

Mr Cowley said: "The whole visit was life-changing for all of us, seeing class sizes of 50 at the school, and looking at the poor facilities they have. But we were all amazed by the children's total commitment to learning.

"On one of our trips across the country, we saw children as young as seven walking to school for miles in the dust wearing pristine school uniforms.

"They have a total value for education that a lot of our kids here could learn from."

The aim of the project is to break down international barriers and create tolerance through sport.

The plan is to take York youngsters out to the school in July next year when they will be involved in playing sports as well as helping with community projects in and around the school. The trip will cost around £1,500 per pupil and there will be a number of fund-raising events ahead of the trip.

These will include a bring-a-book-to-school event to help to create a library for the Tanzanian school and in addition, a container load of equipment is to be sent to the school.

Also, on May 2, the school is holding an international charities day with Oxfam and other charities having stalls in school and Year 7 and Year 8 pupils learning more about the work of those charities.

3:59pm Wednesday 26th March 2008

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