A CLASS of schoolchildren has started a new pen pal scheme – with a group of children living on a refugee camp in Iraq.

The year five and six pupils at Annan School in Halland, near Lewes, sent letters and photos of themselves with their favourite toys.

They were thrilled when the children sent back letters and photos telling them about their lives and experiences in the camp.

Zella, aged ten, said: “We didn’t want to send pictures of our houses because we thought that might look like we were boasting.

“So because they don’t have many things to play with, we thought about sending them pictures of us with our favourite toys, telling them a little bit about us.

“I really liked the stuff they sent us. One of them did a really beautiful picture, some of them wrote stories – they had really beautiful writing.”

In another class, each child drew half the picture of a tree for the Iraqi children to draw the other half.

Another pupil, Taya, also ten, said: “I think they were really quite pleased and interested in the stuff we sent. One of the things they sent us said ‘can you play with us, you can come over here?’ And someone in the class said, ‘can we go there on a school trip?’”

The scheme was organised by a refugee aid worker who made videos of the Iraqi children in their classroom.

The schoolchildren at Annan, an independent primary school for children aged three to 11, said receiving messages from the children has made them aware of the hardships faced by the refugees around the world.

One year five pupil said: “I’m really interested in it now, and I would like to try when I’m older to do something to help them, if there is still a need. It’s made me realise how fortunate we are.”

Zella said: “They say things like, ‘it is tough to live here, but we are happy, we make it fun’. I think they are really glad that they just had a home. It just shows how lucky we are.”

Class teacher Jeannette Atkins said: “I think it made it very real to the children. When you do lessons with kids and you’re looking through textbooks or a website, it’s very distant to the children, but watching clips of the children made it very real and close.”

Now the class are keen to keep the exchange going. Ms Atkins said: “What was lovely was that they were going on to Google Translate and they were trying to write their messages in Arabic – it was amazing.”