Dongshu Bian and Jianhui Liu, the principal and vice-principal of No 17 School in Shijiazhuang in China's Hebei Province spent two days at St Bede's School in Peterlee.

The two schools have been partnered for two years and previous events have seen two members of St Bede's staff visit the Chinese school in May and an international week held at the Westway school in the summer.

Mr Bian and Ms Liu toured the school, sat in on lessons and also had talks with teachers about differences and similarities between the schools.

St Bede's headteacher Paul McKenna said he was surprised to hear that No 17 School has 6,000 pupils, 300 teachers and 60 pupils to a class.

He said this was a stark contrast to St Bede's which has 1,000 pupils, 65 teachers and 25-30 pupils in a class.

The two visitors also got to a chance to visit Durham City and the cathedral, and had tapas with staff.

They also visited Our Lady Star of the Sea Primary School in Horden.

Mr Bian and Ms Liu's visit culminated in a banquet at Ramside Hall, where 20 other teachers from China and teachers from North East England signed an agreement to continue their strong links, including pen-pal programmes and more staff and teacher visits.

The teachers were presented with gifts including a framed picture of Durham Cathedral, a North-East calendar, an English teapot and some tea, England shirts and school memorabilia including St Bede's mascot teddies.

Paul Dickson, assistant head at St Bede's, said: "As a humanities school we feel that students need to be aware of the global community of which they are apart.

"The school has recently been designated with International School Award (ISA) status from the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF). "We plan to develop this further and extend our partner school links with other parts of the world. This globalised approach will help the students prepare for an increasingly globalised world