AN EAST Lancashire school has become the first in the county to make China's official language Mandarin a compulsory subject.

Independent Westholme School, Blackburn, has joined only a handful in the UK to make the subject a set part of its language provision for 11 to 14 year-olds.

Its upper girls school - which takes in pupils across East Lancashire - has added Mandarin to its curriculum alongside French, Spanish, German and Latin.

Staff at Westholme say the decision to embrace the Far East is because the Chinese language is likely to become more global.

As well as learning the language pupils are also being taught the culture and geography of China.

Principal Lillian Croston said: "Here at Westholme we like to seize every opportunity to prepare our girls for the future, and we recognise that with increasing globalisation, it is essential our pupils will be prepared to face the challenges which lie ahead.

"We are offering them the chance to learn a language spoken by a billion people!".

The subject is notoriously hard to master as in Mandarin there is no alphabet as such but around 60,000 different characters.

And pupils will also have to get their tongues around the four and a half complicated tones comprising the language which in simple terms means a single word can have several meanings.

So to ensure the children get an expert grip on the language, the school has hired a Singapore-born teacher to deliver the lessons.

Lin Wong will head the department - joining the school from Durham University, where she has just completed a Master's degree.

She said: "I am looking forward to the challenge of educating English pupils."

Lessons will comprise of an hour each week accompanied by internal examinations and ultimately the school is looking to add Mandarin to its GCSE provision.

And pupils have given the new subject their approval.

They included 11-year-old Jade Whittaker, from Weasel Lane, Tockholes, who said: "I like greeting people in Mandarin. My favourite word is Ni hao' which means hello."

Gabriella Carr, 11, from Wycollar Road, Blackburn added: "It's exciting writing this new text, it's so different."

A Department of Education spokesman confirmed Westholme was one of "only a handful" in the UK making the subject compulsory.