International guests visited a Bushey school as part of a European project aimed at improving language education.

St Hilda’s School, in High Street, Bushey, welcomed teachers and students from France, Spain, Hungary, Italy and Turkey on Tuesday morning.

The visit was part of The Comenius Programme, which is aimed at schools, colleges and local authorities across Europe.

The programme is designed to develop knowledge and understanding among young people and education staff of the diversity of cultures across Europe.

St Hilda’s School Headmistress, Tracy Handford, said: "For us it has just been a really exciting way of making language teaching an everyday part of what we do.

"Children have the capacity to absorb huge amounts of information from a young age, so incorporating language lessons into other subjects helps them to understand the meaning of words."

The day started with a welcome assembly at 9.30am, which incorporated performances influenced by the different countries involved in the project.

There were French, Spanish and Turkish songs and music, a Hungarian folk dance, an Italian version of ‘Old Macdonald’ and a flag dance to Jerusalem.

As well as teachers and students from the European schools, the Mayor of Hertsmere, Councillor Pat Strack, the Head of Aldenham School, James Fowler, and Lord Attlee also spoke during the assembly.

Other events planned for the international guests this week will include a visit to Queen’s School, of Aldenham Road, Little Reddings Primary School, in Harcourt Road and a trip to the Science Museum in London.

The Comenius Programme is part of the British Council and once a school has been accepted, it is a long exchange process that spans almost two years.

This project started in November last year with an Italian school acting as the host, in March a Hungarian school hosted and this week it was St Hilda’s turn.

The next school to host will be in Turkey in November, before moving on to a Spanish school in March next year and finally a French school in May.

Mrs Handford said: "This who programme is about introducing languages to the children so that when they grow up they don’t see it as a burden.

"The ability to communicate with each other is really important and this programme gives us that opportunity to build up our teaching resources and knowledge to educate our children."

"It will hopefully give them that confidence to participate on an equal footing when they visit other countries."