A North Lanarkshire school is delivering Chinese lessons to an engineering firm in exchange for work experience and mentoring for its pupils.

Our Lady’s High in Cumbernauld will officially launch its Confucius classroom later this month, one of eight being established in Scotland. Already, however, apprentices with Clyde Blowers have been receiving tuition in conversational Mandarin from the school’s Chinese learning assistant.

Michael Currie, headteacher of Our Lady’s High, said: “Because of the language link, we are hoping to further develop the relationship. We hope eventually it will involve work experience for our young people and opportunities for members of staff from Clyde Union (a subsidiary of Clyde Blowers) to do a bit of mentoring. We are also hoping they might like to get involved in our career conferences and mock interviews.”