Pollard Park Middle School Bradford was one of Bradford's largest middle schools having once been the old Hanson Grammar building. I taught there from 1980 to the year 2000 when Bradford closed all its middle schools and reverted to an 11-16 secondary system.
Back in its day this building had been revolutionary and award-winning and I do believe that its clock tower is listed.
Pollard Park Middle served a wide local area in Bradford 3 with most of the pupils coming from a Muslim Pakistani or Bengali background.
Whilst at the school I became fascinated by the community religions and became somewhat of an 'expert' in them. I eventually taught RE and I loved the constant buzz created by teaching such a relevant subject in the lives of our pupils.
I also started to learn about computers from their introduction to the mass market and beyond. I ended up teaching IT in addition to RE.
Digital video was my absolute passion and I recorded many aspects of school life.
The Challenge College North Avenue Bradford was one of the brand new schools created in the year 2000 when Bradford reorganised its entire educational provision. It began on the old Woodend Middle School site before moving into this purpose-built building.
It was always intended that this school would make IT technology central to its teaching and every teacher was issued with their own PC before it became standard in other schools. The school had its own intranet and staff were encouraged to become familiar with putting schemes of work on it.
The school's mission was to encourage excellence amongst its staff and students. There was a central aim to enthuse and excite students in their learning hopefully enough to foster life-long learning.
Working at Challenge was demanding hence the name of the school. Much later on Challenge closed and the school reopened as Oasis Academy Lister Park.
Challenge City Learning Centre North Avenue Bradford
The final three years of my teaching career was spent at Challenge City Learning Centre next door to the school. By this stage I had become ill due to stress and anxiety in the secondary sector but was incredibly lucky to have been offered a position in the CLC working with primary children on PCs from across Bradford. I loved many aspects of this job including the opportunity to experience teaching youngsters from schools city wide which I had not had during my entire inner city career.