Teenagers from Qatar in the Middle East visited Bristol Metropolitan Academy in Fishponds this week as part of a schools cultural exchange.

The youngsters were taking part in the British Council's Connecting Classrooms programme, linking students from schools in eight countries to schools in the UK.

The event began with a conference in London, attended by Bristol Met students and their counterparts from the partner school the Omar Bin Alkhattab Independent School in Qatar.

The idea was for the pupils, aged 12 to 17, to debate issues such as globalisation and build greater trust and understanding.

The students won the opportunity to attend the conference in a competition where they had to create a poster, poem, presentation or article about what it meant to them to be a global citizen.

The British Council Connecting Classrooms programme aims to link 30,000 schools and two million young people worldwide by 2013.