PAKISTANI school teachers from the town where Osama Bin Ladin was found and assassinated are visiting schools in County Durham this week.

Greenfield Community College in Newton Aycliffe and Teesdale School in Barnard Castle are among the schools that will host teachers from Abbottabad in Pakistan as part of the Connecting Classrooms programme.

The project aims to encourage pupils to investigate perceptions of different nationalities and cultures, as well as enabling teachers to share educational experiences.

At Greenfield, the teachers will share novels to promote discussion and learning. Teesdale School, meanwhile, has planned a weeklong programme, including a concert and tree planting ceremony.

Cassie Flint, assistant director of language and literature at Teesdale School, who visited Abbottabad last year, said the aim was to enhance pupils’ understanding of global citizenship and conflict resolution.

“Because of the events relating to the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the visit which I made last year to Abbottabad was incredibly high profile and really strove to address some of the difficult media coverage that the city had quite unwittingly attracted,” she said.