News is reaching William Bradford College, Leicestershire, that pupils and staff in their partner school are safe.

After a week of waiting, Sue Mitchell and all the staff and pupils at William Bradford Community College are receiving the best possible news.

They have heard today that none of the nine thousand pupils and staff at Nanshan Middle School have lost their lives.

Communication has been extremely difficult but today BBC Chinese service colleagues have managed to speak directly to Mr Zou Yuguang, teaching director Nanshan Middle School, who has confirmed that everyone has survived. 

Mr Zou Yuguang sent the following message to William Bradford Community College:

"Fortunately there aren’t any casualties in our school, but some school buildings are damaged.  At the moment aftershocks happen frequently, therefore all the classes are suspended for now.

"We’re truly grateful for the concern and care from Sue and from the teachers and pupils of William Bradford Community College.

"We’ll try our best to make our originally planned trip to the UK to visit them in early July. Thanks again for their support."

Mianyang itself has been badly affected with thousands of people reported dead or trapped under rubble.
 
Some 10,000 people have been moved into the Jiuzhou gymnasium for shelter after their homes were destroyed and Mianyang city has also been inundated with thousands of people leaving the villages in the surrounding mountains in search of aid.

Plans are afoot to enable teachers at William Bradford and Nanshan to speak to each other, while pupils in Leicestershire are sending messages for their peers in Mianyang.  

Check BBC World Class for updates.

How did they do that?

Leicestershire has a district link with Sichuan province which includes 12 school partnerships co-ordinated by international links officer, Helen Trilling which we covered on World Class last week.

The partnerships are facilitated by the British Council.

Read They Felt for Chengdu, our first story about the Leicestershire Sichuan links, and more from the BBC Chinese service.

To find out how you can twin your school email worldclass@bbc.co.uk

Read about the Chinese earthquake at the BBC News website.
 
Please let us know if you have a partner school in China email worldclass@bbc.co.uk.