THE half-term holiday will see a group of teachers going back to the classroom - but thousands of miles from their usual place of work.

The Northallerton group are off to Africa as part of a special educational project in Ghana.

Five primary school heads from Brompton, Carlton Miniott, Mill Hill, Romanby and Broomfield and three teachers are flying out on October 21 to spend their holiday working with the students and pupils at Fayef International School in New Bortianor, Ghana.

The school was built nine years ago as part of New Day New Life, a mission of the New Life Baptist Church in Northallerton.

Members of the team, who are all meeting their mown cost, will spend time working alongside the Ghanaian teachers as well as conducting an audit on the school operations.

They will be led by Liz Foster from Borrowby whose work with the local school cluster and her involvement with New Life Baptist Church led her to undertake an initial visit back in May 2009.

On her return she told the cluster members about her visit and asked would anybody be interested in being part of a larger team.

"The response was amazing," she said.

"Not only were they enthusiastic to be part of the project, the governing bodies of all the schools have given their blessing to the trip."

The team will be accompanied by Julie Burnett who heads up the New Day New Life project which also supports a children’s home and runs a sponsorship programme for the children in the home and the school.

"This is a fantastic response from the local schools and the resources and experience they can bring to the education project in Ghana is immense," she said.