TWO teachers avoided three suicide bomb attacks while on a training trip to war-torn Afghanistan.

Steve Lancashire, headteacher of Hillyfield Primary School, and his deputy Kate Jennings wore body armour and travelled in an armed convoy during the four-day visit to advise teachers in the capital Kabul.

Mr Lancashire said: "Three suicide bombs went off, one bomb went off right next to the school, so we were in lock down.

"That was a bit scary for us.”

Despite the near miss, the teachers experience left them with a positive impression of the country and its inhabitants.

Mr Lancashire continued: “The over-riding thing we found was a positive spirit. We went out into the slums and were met with warm, friendly smiles. "People were very open to us and happy and proud that we were in their country."

“The British Council were finding it difficult to get anyone to got to Afghanistan.

"But we have a few children from Afghan families at our school and we thought it would be good to be able to talk to them about their home country, so we agreed to go."

The teachers flew out to Dubai to meet officials from the Afghan education ministry.

They planned their training sessions and had their materials translated into Dari so the Afghan teachers could read them.

On Friday 13, the pair jetted out to Kabul to begin, with the help of translators, delivering four days of training sessions with 20 headteachers from all over the country.

Mr Lancashire immediately noticed differences between schooling in the UK and Afghanistan.

He said: "The main difference is in how deveoped the country is.

"Our school has 700 pupils and is considered big but one of the schools there has 27,000, even the smallest school had 5,000 children.

"And there are other problems, electricity cannot be guaranteed, for instance."

But despite these differences, Mr Lancashire said they were struck by how similiar their attitudes to teaching are.

He said: "Teachers and parents in both countries seem to appreciate the same thing in a school, they want good behaviour, and for the children to be well cared for and to enjoy their education.

"We visited a secondary school and the pupils were forward-thinking and really positive."

Mr Lancashire and Ms Jennings taught the teachers how to evaluate how good their schools are and give teachers feedback.

The trip was so successful they have been asked to return to Kabul in July to train more headteachers.