Headteacher of Queens' School in Bushey visited their sister school in Taiwan to find out why international links are so important.

Terry James visited their partner school, Er Chong Junior High School in New Taipei City last month.

Mr James, reflecting on his trip, said: "Before our visit, I hadn't appreciated quite what a big deal this is for Er Chong High School and their local community.

"This has caused me to reflect why is it such international links important and do schools in the UK value these links as they should and do enough to foster them?"

Mr James noted the first he noticed was how the lessons are similar to the UK, however, a stark difference is the school day.

School starts at 7.30am, with formal lessons finishing at 4pm, then students have an hour of compulsory extra-curricular activity and then many also have exam preparation or improving their English classes from 6-8pm.

"I am certainly not advocating anything like this at Queens'," Mr James added, "and many Er Chong teachers are concerned about the stress being put on their students.

"However, there is a middle way and I do think that while many of our students do work really hard, some of our students think they are working hard, but they aren't really."

Another interesting comparison the head teacher made in Taiwan was the emphasis they placed on speaking another language, especially English and Japanese.

He said: "I think this is symptomatic of two things, firstly their curiosity to learn about other cultures and secondly, their politeness. They think it's rude not to be able to speak to people in their own language.

"To conclude, travelling to other countries is extremley valuable educationally."