OVER 500 teaching students will be visiting Bradford schools this academic year as part of a push to attract more high skilled staff to the district.

Bradford Council has been running bus tours of Bradford’s schools for the past two years. So far over 800 trainees have visited the district’s primaries.

This year the tours have been expanded to include secondary schools, and by the end of the academic year it is expected 500 students will have been shown round a wide variety of schools, but council run and academies.

The tours were organised to give people who are training to be teachers an insight into how rewarding working in the local schools can be. They have already been a major success helping to recruit more than 200 teachers into Bradford’s primary schools since they were first launched.

This month there has been six buses taking Leeds Trinity University students around 12 secondary schools. They included Immanuel College, Samuel Lister, Ilkley Grammar, Beckfoot Thornton, Bradford Forster Academy, Dixons City Academy, Dixons McMillan, Hanson, Belle Vue Girls, Buttershaw Business and Enterprise, Dixons Allerton and Dixons Kings.

Councillor Imran Khan, the Council’s executive member for education, employment and skills said: “We know that when people see the work that our schools do first-hand they want to be involved. We hope the teacher training students who take part are inspired by what they see.

"Bradford’s secondary schools are already achieving some amazing results – having been the fourth most improved area in the country for the progress pupils are making at GCSE. We hope more talented teachers taking part in the latest round of bus tours will join us to help improve the district’s results further.”