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School flies friendship flag at the World Cup
A special flag is heading to South Africa as World Cup fever hits a Wearside primary school.
Youngsters at Barnwell Primary School have lovingly written messages on a 10ft by 6ft flag to be presented to their new twin school, Strandfontein Primary School, in Cape Town.
Children at the Penshaw school were thrilled with the flag, which is a large St George's Cross, bearing the Barnwell School logo and a South African flag in the top corner.
Football-mad dad Craig MacDonald, whose children, Tom, 10, and Zoe, six, are pupils at the school, has travelled to South Africa for the World Cup and has arranged to present the flag to Strandfontein Primary.
Craig, who came up with the plan, said: "Strandfontein Primary serves a community comprised predominantly of single-parent families, parents who are unemployed and learners from informal settlements along the beach.
"The benefits of this relationship will be long term and hopefully be of a lot of use to both schools, whereupon they can liaise through email, etc and learn more about each other's cultures and learning programmes."
As well as the flag, Craig and his friends have also taken shirts, socks, boots and scarves, donated by Sunderland AFC, as presents for the South African children.
The South African primary has about 869 children, with about 40 in each class, and the school has very limited resources.
Janet Foster, headteacher at Barnwell Primary School, said: "Craig is an avid Sunderland supporter and often travels to follow the team and takes big flags with him.
"He came up with the idea of this flag and I thought it was a fantastic idea and it is wonderful to have parents who are so enthusiastic about getting involved with the school.
"The children were absolutely thrilled when they saw the flag and loved the fact it was going to South Africa with our logo on and they were able to write messages on it."
Mrs Foster said the school is now looking forward to furthering their partnership with their new twin school.
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Weather for Sunderland
Thursday 23 February 2012
Today
Cloudy
Temperature: 7 C to 14 C
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