Student Heather Butcher is off to one of the remotest parts of the world to teach English.

Next month the 28-year-old Brighton University student jets out to the Chinese province of Shaanxi in Inner Mongolia through which the Great Wall of China runs.

She said: "It could get as cold as minus 30C, so I will need plenty of warm clothes. So far, I've bought a lot of thermal underwear."

Heather, who has just completed her second year studying a teaching degree, will be one of only three people from Britain travelling to work in China on a special Voluntary Services Overseas scheme.

Despite not being able to speak Chinese, she hopes to help children improve their English pronunciation and speech in the town of Yulin on the southern-most tip of the Gobi Desert.

Heather, who gave up working for the Metropolitan Police to study for her degree, said: "I think the worse thing to cope with will be being so isolated. It is a 16-hour drive to the capital of the province by coach or an hour by flight."

When she arrives in Yulin, Heather will stay with two other VSO volunteers in a teachers' training college.

Much to her relief, Heather will have her own toilet and access to an electric shower - if it works. She said: "If the electricity is cut off, there is a boiler room next door where we can get buckets of hot water for a bath."

Heather, who lives in Alexandra Villas, Brighton, plans to use e-mail to link children at Hampden Park Secondary School in Eastbourne, where she worked as a trainee teacher, with the Chinese children thousands of miles away.