A SALE teacher fresh back from a fact-finding mission to India regaled pupils with an account of his trip at a special assembly on Friday.

Moorlands Junior School Year 5 teacher, Paul Ross, reported on his expedition to the sub-continent’s remote region of Rajasthan.

He visited schools taking part in a partnership programme with landscaping firm Marshalls as part of their ethical policy, to which Moorlands is contributing.

Paul, 25, met with pupils and teachers and learned how the partnership was benefiting youngsters’ education.

Moorland pupils were joined by staff, parents and governors for the special assembly.

“I was really pleased I got to see first hand the wonderful work the teachers are doing out in India,” he told SAM afterwards. “The children have remarkably high standards of English and maths and they really want to learn.

“It was a real culture shock to me to go over there though. There’s absolutely no sense of health and safety, but things seem to get done. It was interesting to see children as young as four helping to look after babies and helping younger children read and write. The children there are expected to do much more from an early age than here.”

But he added: “The real point of the visit was to see how money we’ve raised at Moorlands was being used, and what really amazed me was to see how far £2,500 goes over there. It’s a massive amount of money for them and it was great to see how it’s helping the children to progress.”

Moorlands School has been fundraising for the Indian schools since the start of the current academic year, and raised cash with a Christmas carol concert, a music festival, and from proceeds of the school’s Harvest Cafe which sells cakes and buns to pupils there at playtime.