IT’S school, but not as youngsters in Oxford know it.

With an 8am to 5pm timetable, daily school exercises, medal ceremonies, mass singing, and an initiation into the Communist Party, a week of lessons at Ma Wang Dui Primary School in Changsa, southern China, was a little different to normal for eight Rose Hill Primary School children.

The pupils became the first primary school children in Britain to go on an exchange trip to China, under a British Council initiative to improve relations between the two countries.

Accompanied by four teachers, the group spent the week living with host families, eating regional delicacies including fermented tofu, and seeing some of the region’s most famous sites.

Located 500 miles north west of Hong Kong, most of the city’s three million residents had never seen Westerners before, while none of the British children had been to China.

They were followed around by the press throughout their visit.

Tayla Bradley, nine, said: “People kept coming up to me and stroking my hair. It was like I was famous.

“My exchange partner’s mum was an English teacher and said the Chinese people were saying I was pretty.”

But the group’s biggest shock was the way Chinese schools are organised, with classes of 50 who rotate round different classrooms for their subjects from the age of two.

Most of the youngsters are only children, because of the state’s one child policy.

During breaks, children and teachers do organised exercise routines, and pupils are expected to stay on beyond the 3.20pm finish for extra tuition.

The purpose-built 650-pupil Chinese primary school includes an athletics track complete with medals podium, table tennis centre, a 66-computer IT suite, and a VIP room for visitors.

Year Five teacher Nicola Matthews said: “It was fascinating, and an amazing experience.

“The people we met were so generous and interested in us, and made us feel very welcome.”

The visiting pupils were even inducted into the Young Pioneers, the Chinese Communist Party’s youth movement, and presented with special red ties.

Jack Tallon, 11, said: “We learnt part of the language and a lot about the history, and met some very nice people.

“I prefer that over here we have to be at school by 8.55am rather than 8am, but I like that in China they do more sport.”

Dion Asante, 10, added: “The Chinese school was very posh and new, but I prefer the way we learn over here.”

Their Chinese exchange partners are due to visit and stay with their new friends’ families later this year. The two schools have already set up joint educational projects, including working on writing a story together by sending alternate chapters 6,000 miles between the two schools.