From January, P7 pupils in Woodhill Primary - which has international school status and recently achieved the highest grade of health promotion accreditation - will keep a diary of what they eat and email it every week (with the assistance of a French-speaking teacher) to schools in Nancy and Coventry.

The project has emerged from the FrancoAngloScottish citizenship expert group, chaired by Jeff McGuire from the Scottish Executive education department.

Mary Larkin, who represents the local authorities on the group, said interesting differences emerged in approaches to health and citizenship at the first meeting.

“England is still teaching citizenship, while we have broken away from that in a big way and are into permeation. In France, their big headline was health -they believe that if you get that right, then it produces good citizens.”