A BRADFORD primary school has held a day of celebrations to mark the next stage in its future.

On Friday, pupils at Thornton Primary School took part in a day of events, including a samba band led parade, time capsule planting and sing along.

The day was to mark the school becoming part of the Focus Academy Trust at the start of the month.

The trust already runs Shibden Head Primary School in Queensbury, which joined in 2013, and also took over the running of Wilsden Primary School on March 1.

Founded in the North West in 2012, the Focus Trust runs fifteen academies, and as well as its three Bradford district primary school also runs Birstall Primary School as well as schools in Oldham, Rochdale and Manchester.

Although many of the district’s secondary schools have become academies, it has only been the past year or so that significant numbers of primary schools have started joining academy chains.

Last year the government performed a U turn on plans for every school in the country to become an academy by 2022, but many local primary schools are either on their way to leaving local authority control, or have already joined an academy trust.

Friday’s celebrations at Thornton Primary School, on Thornton Road, started with an aerial photograph from Thornton Viaduct showing children who had bought balloons as part of a raffle.

Children stood on the playground in the shape of letters spelling out ‘FOCUS’ while an image was taken with a drone camera.

Members of Trust ,including CEO Helen Rowland and Claire Livingstone who leads the Human Resources team, arrived to celebrate with each year group as they sang a song written for the occasion and the pair cut a cake which they then shared among staff and pupils.

Later in the day members of school council, the head and deputy head boys and girls, Mrs Rowland, Chair and vice chair of governors Amanda Cade and Simon Willis, and head Liz Davison planted a tree with a time capsule buried underneath. It contained items like photographs of the school and current pupils, a a Friday copy of the Telegraph & Argus, and children’s work for future generations to see what Thornton Primary looked like in 2017.

In the afternoon, children who have been learning Samba led a parade around the school grounds along with a band.

Each class had prepared a banner showing their logo and motto and the parade ended up with a whole school gathering, including some parents.

A spokesman for the Focus Trust said: “We are delighted that Thornton and Wilsden Primary schools joined our Trust on March 1.

“One of our very first academies who joined the Trust back in March 2013 was Shibden Head Primary Academy.

“Now that Wilsden and Thornton are part of the Trust this will enable a hub of three Bradford academies to work very closely with each other on improving teaching and learning, assessment and improving pupil outcomes.

“Focus-Trust now has 15 academies in total and this collaborative way of working and sharing of effective practice is a strength of our philosophy and commitment.”