YOUNGSTERS from a York primary school said “hola” to visitors from Spain as part of a week-long exchange trip.

Knavesmire Primary School has established a link with a primary school in Barcelona called El Cim and this term has seen a group of 21 11-year-olds from the Catalan capital come to York.

It was a return visit as last year ten Year 6 pupils and staff from York went on an exploratory visit to Barcelona.

This time around youngsters spent the week in York doing joint language activities, taking a city tour, playing sports together on the Knavesmire, and watching the Barcelona v Chelsea match together. The Year 5s also hosted an English afternoon tea.

Adam Cooper, head teacher at Knavesmire, said: “We currently hold the International Schools Award at Knavesmire, partly because of our international links.

“It’s quite a prestigious thing to have and part of it is about putting into practise language skills and links with other countries.

“At Knavesmire we teach French as a language and look at Spanish as well in Key Stage 2 – that’s the seven-11-year-olds.

“Before the visit our children have been emailing the Spanish pupils in Spanish and sent them a poster and they have replied in English and created their own poster.”

While they were in York the pupils did a round of tourist activities like visiting the Jorvik Viking Centre and riding the York Wheel as well as walking the Bar Walls, but Mr Cooper said sport and the weather also came into play.

He said: “Because of the horrible weather we have been having they had to dodge the showers, but they all were told to bring an umbrella with them as a must, which paid off.

“They also really wanted to watch the Barcelona v Chelsea match so we had about 70 children – them and our Year 5 and 6s here watching it in the hall.

“The children were really impressed with how well the Spainish pupils could speak English and if anything, they were inspired to try and get better at their Spanish.

“There were also some strong friendships forged and there were tears on both sides when they came to leave.”