A school’s innovative efforts to give its pupils the savoir faire necessary to thrive in a multilingual world have been rewarded.

Eastburn Junior and Infant School has been given a national prize for creative language learning through ‘e-Twinning’.

The award was presented at a conference by the British Council and recognises a project led by the school’s modern foreign language teaching specialist Diana Linford.

Mrs Linford ran a video-conferencing scheme which linked pupils at Eastburn school to children in St André de Majencoules in Hérault, France.

Headteacher Jan Elliott said: “The project used Skype calls to enable the children to practise their speaking and listening.

“There were games in which the children communicated with each other in English and French. At the end of the project, the children reflected on their learning and shared feedback on the Twinspace blog.” She added that the school was proud to have received the award, which includes a prize of a webcam and some computer animation software.

Eastburn school also holds the International Schools award for work to link it to counterparts around the world, including schools in Pakistan and Uganda.