THE spirit of European union filled the air when a whole class of German pupils dropped into Elmfield School, Stourbridge, for a ten day cultural exchange.

The Germans, who come from Schloss Hamborn, were in the UK to meet their English friends who visited them last May.

They were preparing for a production of The Taming of the Shrew in English and were excited to be in the area which inspired the Bard.

The Elmfield Rudolf Steiner School is one of 900 Steiner Schools worldwide.

Stourbridge has regular exchanges with the Schloss Hamborn Steiner School, which is near Paderborn in northern Germany.

Every year for the last 15 years the pupils of class nine go to Germany to stay with the class nine there. They take part in cultural events, excursions, sporting activities and school life, as well as working hard on the school's farm.

In the autumn the German class, now class ten, comes to Stourbridge to stay with their English friends.

The pupils rehearse their English play under the direction of the Elmfield drama teacher and their own English teacher. They also visit Birmingham, Stratford and Oxford, go to concerts and the theatre and participate in school life.

The German class does a small performance with scenes from the play, music and poems before returning home.

Every year it is a special event for the whole school to receive the visiting class and experience first hand another language and culture.

Younger Elmfield pupils experience how worthwhile it is to learn another language, while the class that goes to Germany live in their culture and language and have the opportunity for daily practice of the German that they have been learning for nine years.

The link goes back to the days just after World War Two when Elmfield was just a young school newly established in Stourbridge.

The school helped the Schloss Hamborn to get going again after the devastation of the war.

So when the Germans were looking for an English partner school in the early 90s, Elmfield was the obvious choice.

Since then there have been regular exchanges of classes and participation in some special events in both of the schools.

This partnership and exchange programme enliven the language curriculum for both schools, where children learn two foreign languages from the age of seven.

In the Steiner Waldorf curriculum, languages are taught first by imitation, with games, songs, verses and conversation.

Later, written and reading work is taught with the study of the grammar and structure within the cultural context. This is the type of language programme the government says supports the European partnership and opens up the world to pupils with tolerance and understanding, as well as future jobs.