Four-year-old Kendal Lees shows off the shoeboxes she and her nursery-school classmates have decorated and filled with Christmas presents for Albanian children and their families.

Warm socks for Dad, soap for Mum, toys, books and babyfood, are being transported to Albania on “Timothy Truck” in an operation organised by Reading-based charity Feed the Children .

Kendal, who attends Norcot nursery school in Reading, already knows a good deal more about Albania than many adults. She says: “I wouldn’t like to live there because they haven’t got much to eat and there’s not much toys. Also, there are horrible toilets and rats run round the kitchen.”

“Some of the rats even do poos there,” Declan O’Flaherty, also four, adds gravely.

Staff at the nursery have clearly managed to bring alive the plight of youngsters in the former Communist state to their 180 pupils, some as young as three. This is one reason why the school has won a Times Educational Supplement 1995 Award for Community Action.

The award scheme, jointly organised by the Directory of Social Change and the National Youth Agency, carries five first prizes of Pounds 500 funded by Grand Metropolitan PLC. Norcot school will use the money to pay for a visit from a teacher at Kindergarten No 2 in the Albanian capital of Tirana, with which it has established close links.

“We were chuffed to bits to win,” says head Diana Heath. “It’s an acknowledgement of all we’ve been doing and proves we are providing for the children educationally.”

Norcot school’s special friendship with Kindergarten No 2 began more than two years ago. Pupils exchanged letters and photos, and the British children collected toys and clothes to send. Later, they filled Smarties tubes with coins and made a money mountain. They collected old tools, and gave talks at a World Education Fellowship conference in London to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the United Nations and a Feed the Children fifth birthday celebration.

Eighteen months ago they were visited by the Albanian ambassador and his wife, then deputy head Kathryn Solly went to Kindergarten No 2 last May. Her trip was paid for by the Central Bureau of Educational Visits and Exchanges and Berkshire County Council.

It was a sobering experience. “Some of the children arrived at 6am and left at 5pm. They were presented with the same resources every day,” she says. “The school was falling to bits and there were no paints or scissors. Cigarette packets were used for building blocks.

“One day I took in a bowl of water and sand and they were like bees round a honeypot. Because the teachers had been blinkered for so long under the old regime they seemed unable to think in creative ways.”

Her visit acted as a catalyst. Different teaching styles were discussed. By the end of two weeks, the Albanian staff’s behaviour towards pupils had improved as had the range of activities on offer.

Back home, Ms Solly told Norcot pupils about her experiences and she and other teachers thought more about how to incorporate the new friendship into the curriculum. Each term they now have an Albanian focus week.

“What’s unusual is how these children have linked minds with the children of Albania,” Ms Solly says. “They have begun to understand what it is like to live in an Albanian home and go to an Albanian school. We have provided opportunities for role-play to enable them to empathise with another way of life. We’ve also taught geography by talking about the countries Timothy Truck has to go through to get to Albania, and maths, by encouraging the children to weigh the pennies they collected and sort the clothes they donated.

“We’ve dealt with complex ideas about citizenship and sharing and proved that children as young as three can take these things on board. They really want the situation to improve in Albania.”

The other four TES award-winners are the Alloa Academy, Scotland, which restored a memorial garden in the town, the Emmanuel Youth Project, Forest Gate, east London, for their work with a water project in Kenya, St Ambrose high, Coatbridge, Scotland, for a project on disability, and Yes, the Aberdare-based Youth Entertainment Society, South Wales, for their fundraising through local entertainment. Around 90 entries were whittled down to a shortlist of 14.

The judging panel included Ann Townsend, employee volunteers manager, GrandMet PLC, Anne Mountfield, head of publishing, Directory of Social Change, and David Budge, assistant editor of The TES.

The idea behind the award scheme, now in its second year, is to create better links between the voluntary sector and the education world. Ms Mountfield says: “Voluntary work isn’t just about helping the poor, sick and needy. The educational and social benefit for schools and young people can be enormous. ”

The other 1995 finalists were Inham Nook youth club, Nottingham; Newnham infant school, Ruislip, Middlesex; Hayesbrook school, Tonbridge, Kent; Springwell community school, Chesterfield, Derbyshire; The Leys high school, Redditch, Worcestershire; Canon Barnett primary school, London E1; Mill House special school, Newton-le-Willows, Merseyside; Flora McDonald, junior school, Littlehampton, West Sussex, and St Laurence school, Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire.