After nearly two decades of teaching at the bustling secondary school in Mangotsfield, Helen Bell fancied a complete change of lifestyle.

When you're used to working each day on the outskirts of Bristol, the world doesn't come much more different than the picturesque and windswept Falkland Islands.

The 55-year-old food and textile technology teacher, from Bradford-on-Avon, made the epic 8,000-mile move with her husband Christopher in September. "It's another world," she says.

"You reach a certain point in life where you fancy a change. I felt I wanted to do something that was a bit more adventurous while I had the chance.

"My husband had just retired after a long career with the MoD, so it felt like a good time.

"I would get hold of the educational supplements every Friday and sit in the staffroom, flicking through them and wishing I could find a post in some exotic country.

"As soon as I saw the advert for a deputy head at the Falklands Community School in the capital, Stanley, I thought I'd give it a go. I ripped the advert out and went home and phoned the number straight away.

"The next day I received a telephone call from the head teacher, and I was soon convinced I had the skills and experience they were looking for. My husband had visited the islands when he was working for the British Antarctic Survey, and he was keen to return.

"I was so excited by the prospect of seeing a new part of the world, and the idea that there were just 3,000 people on the whole of the Falklands. I'd spent 18 years working at a school that had 1,200 students.

"I knew I'd get to know everyone, and felt I could make a real difference to this tight-knit community." The following week Helen attended a slightly surreal job interview.

"It took place over the phone," she says. "I was in my house, but I pretended I was meeting the head face-to-face, to get into the interview frame of mind.

"It worked. I was offered the job the next day.

"It's a four-year contract, and I expect we will return to the UK after that."

The couple then rented out their Bradford-on-Avon home, and broke the news to their sons Nicholas, 28, and Philip, 26.

"They were a bit shocked at first," Helen says.

"But these days you can phone, email and talk on online video, so it doesn't really need to feel as if you're on the other side of the world. It felt like a holiday at first.

"We were living out of suitcases, because it took more than a month for the containers full of our furniture and personal things to reach us.

"But we were surprised by how quickly we settled in and were welcomed into the community. It felt as if we knew everyone within a matter of weeks."

There are just 140 children in the whole school: "But young people are the same the world over. They all have the same worries and anxieties about their lives, their families and their relationships.

"They all have to go over to the UK to finish their schooling and do their A-levels, so they have to be prepared to leave their families at the age of 16.

"Some do this much earlier when they are weekly boarders in Stanley, because their home is out in camp – a Falklands term for the countryside, from the Spanish el campo.

"I find it amazing to see these confident young people ready to fly the nest at such an early age.

"But that seems to come from island living. Education here is very similar, as the English teaching methods and UK examination systems are used.

"The students are generally very polite. I think pressure on young people to perform their best is even greater here, because if they do not reach the points needed from their GCSE grades they are unable to come to the UK to complete their education."

Helen has worked her timing quite nicely. Having moved in September, she's had a year with two summers.

"I've been staggered by the wealth of wildlife down here – animals like penguins and elephant seals," she says.

"And I've been surprised by how beautiful the Falkland Islands are.

"You think it's going to be barren and cold, but we've already had so many wonderfully warm and sunny days, and the landscape is dotted with the most amazing flowers.

"Driving to work each day, I never fail to enjoy the wonderful views of the Falkland Sound.

"And I am loving the slower pace of life. It's like living in the Fifties again.

"There is only the one television channel, and no TV advertising at all. Everything seems far less commercialised. Christmas wasn't mentioned until a week beforehand.

"It feels as if we're in the middle of the most amazing adventure. We're having the time of our lives."