The national training base for a highly rated anti-drugs project has been set up in Bradford.

The city is hosting the national training headquarters for Life Education Centres, which sends touring mobile classrooms to primary schools across the country.

The mobile units feature Harold the giraffe, highly visual training aids and expert teachers. They are very popular with schools.

Education Bradford, which has just moved to plush new offices in Bolling Road, has linked with Life Education Centres, a national charity, to provide office space.

Jan Forshaw, of Education Bradford, will work three days a week on the project and will train new members of staff from all over the country.

"During the next three years, with help from Education Bradford, we will train enough new educators to reach another 300,000 children," said Stephen Burgess, national director.

"It takes three months of intensive training for a teacher to become a Life Education Centres educator. Not just learning about drugs and drug prevention but acquiring the special skills required to educate our children about the wonder of the human body, how to look after it and resist the temptations of misusing drugs including alcohol and tobacco. A Life Education educator is a very special person."

Mark Pattison, managing director of Education Bradford, said: "You can't be academically successful if you haven't got the basic well-being as a person. We are committed to giving the young people of Bradford the best possible start in life, not just through academic opportunities but the health and social sides."

Dick Hazlehurst, chairman of the Bradford Life Education Centre, said it was appropriate for the training base to be in Bradford because the district was the first place in mainland Britain to gain one of the mobile classrooms which has been paid for by the community

Thanks to assistance from the Cinderella Club and Rotary Clubs in the Aire Valley, the district now has three.

"A bigger proportion of Bradford children have lessons in the Life Education centres than anywhere else," he said.

Educators aim to make the lessons, that take place inside the caravans, into "memorable experiences". Teachers report that the youngsters seem to remember much of what they are taught.

Lessons are a multi-sensory experience with children sitting cross legged on the floor of the caravan underneath a ceiling made of twinkling 'stars'. Harold the Giraffe, a favourite with youngsters, often sings them a song.