A FARNWORTH primary school held a travellers day to educate children about the different way of living.

Youngsters at St Gregory's Primary in Presto Street learned about the way travellers live, and their different experiences.

As part of the day, schoolchildren were invited to have a tour of a caravan, and enjoyed a ride on a carousel.

Carrie Thorne, a computing teacher at the school who organised the day, said it was aimed at increasing the children's knowledge about how travellers live.

She said: "We have got three traveller families in our school so we decided that we would promote their culture within our school.

"The children were given information about the different types of traveller communities, and we wanted to explain to them that traveller communities are diverse, and there are a number of different groups."

She said that during an assembly held in school, the children were told about showmen, who run fairgrounds all over the country, Irish travellers and Romani people.

Travellers hit hitting the headlines over the past few years because of evictions at the Dale Farm traveller site in Essex, as well as the controversial Channel 4 TV show My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding, which some people say portrayed travellers in a bad light.

But Mrs Thorne said everyone has embraced traveller families at the school — and that there had not been any problems between different groups.

She said: "It hasn't been a problem because we do a lot of things about their culture in school, and the children are aware of how they live.

"We are very proud of the cohesion in our school. It was a really successful day and the children really enjoyed it."

A question and answer session was also held with the children and some of the travellers, and Mrs Thorne said that the children were very insightful in their questioning.

She added: "They weren't asking obvious questions — they were thinking hard and asked about how they receive post, for example."