A BOLTON headteacher will fly out to Spain next month as part of a pan-European scheme to link special schools.

Rumworth School head Bill Bradbury and advanced skills teacher Margaret Riley will meet with 20 colleagues from nine countries to visit special schools in Madrid. The week long visit further strengthens ties between Rumworth and nine other schools throughout Europe under the educational umbrella of the Comenius Project, which enables teachers from European countries to visit each other to gain insight into educational systems. The host school arranges tours of the area and teachers visit schools to meet students and staff to see how they approach similar problems.

They then keep in touch via e-mail. Staff from Rumworth have visited schools in Hungary, Slovakia, Finland, Belgium, Italy, Norway, Germany and the UK.

Mr Bradbury said two Slovakian teachers who worked in a school for the deaf, had just returned from a visit to Bolton schools including the Thomasson Memorial School for the Hearing Impaired.