St Patrick's Primary School - which was one of 316 Ulster schools and almost 15,000 pupils who participated in the Belfast Telegraph's Eurolearn project - was selected at random to travel to Brussels.

The weekly educational programme was designed to be used by schools throughout Northern Ireland and culminated in an all expenses paid, three night trip to Brussels for one of the schools which took part in the scheme.

Three teachers and 27 pupils from St Patrick's Primary School made the journey and Phil McNally, a teacher at the school, said everyone was delighted by the experience: "We had an absolutely fantastic time. We were treated so well throughout the trip and we would like to thank the Belfast Telegraph."

One of the pupils who travelled to Brussels, Hannah McGill, said: "I had a really great fun-filled three days. We got to see some lovely buildings and palaces. The weather was really good and I got some lovely photographs."

The Eurolearn initiative aimed to develop pupils' geography, literacy and numeracy skills in a fun and topical way.

It was written by the Belfast Telegraph's Newspapers in Education Executive Jennifer O'Reilly - a former teacher.

Ms O'Reilly said: "The children of St Patrick's had a really wonderful time in Belguim. One of the highlights was the visit to the parliament - not normally open to young people under the age of 14.

"We would like to thank the staff of the NIO office in Brussels and the office of Jim Allister who made that particular aspect of the visit possible.

"The Eurolearn project was a great success in schools in the summer term. Many schools will now be enjoying their digital cameras which were also part of the gift to all schools taking part in the Newspapers in Education literacy initiative