Holy Family Catholic Primary School, Armley, has forged links with the Musa Q'Aleh school, Afghanistan, through a staff member's uncle, serving in the Army over there.

And after hearing the school had only basic equipment, with children sometimes trying to study without pens or pencils, staff decided to clear out their stationery room and put together 20 parcels of exercise books, pens, pencils and crayons.

An appeal to the children, pictured above, and their parents resulted in 60 shoe boxes being handed over, packed with small toys, pencils, crayons, colouring books, socks and gloves to send to the children.

Headteacher Peter McQuillen Strong said: "Previously we have done it for places like Romania but that's a little bit more distant to us because that's not in the public domain at the moment.

"But Afghanistan very much is, so all the children knew about Afghanistan and knew there was a war going on, so they were very empathetic towards the children out there."

Pupils in all year groups took part in the festive project.