THE school day at a Bradford high school is to the stay the same - for now - following “differences of opinion” over controversial plans to finish at lunchtime on a Friday.

Queensbury Academy, part of the Bradford-based Feversham Education Trust, informed parents that it wanted to lengthen the school day from Monday to Thursday to accommodate an early finish at the end of the week.

At the time, principal Colette Macklin said the school had looked at a number of different models before reaching the proposal which went out to consultation.

She said it would allow for professional development time and that it was about improving the quality of teaching, learning and outcomes.

But Councillor Robert Hargreaves (Con, Queensbury) said it was important the school look at the impact the changes could have on the local community and residents immediately surrounding the school, pointing to the potential for large numbers of children to descend on the village on Friday afternoons when parents or guardians were not available to supervise them.

In response to such concerns, Mrs Macklin said there would be activities for unsupervised children, staff would be on site through the afternoon and the school would be speaking to the community.

The consultation closed earlier this week and in a letter to parents, Mrs Macklin said: “We have considered all the comments we have received from

staff, parents and carers as part of our consultation process and there are many differences of opinion.

“It is clear that we have some refining to do with regard to the current proposal.

“Due to the time of year, we do not have sufficient time to refine the proposals, consult with you again and give parents and staff enough notice to make arrangements for September.

“We have therefore decided not to make any changes to the school day for September 2018.

“As part of our annual review process, we will revisit this and other aspects of our provision in the new academic year, with the intention of implementing any changes for the following academic year, 2019-2020.

“Trustees and Governors have been informed and have asked me to pass on their thanks for your contributions.”

Following the Telegraph & Argus’s initial story on the proposed changes, a reader poll online found that 36 per cent of people were in favour of the plans, while 64 per cent were not.

The proposal sparked a debate among readers. One person wrote: "The impact is far a wide ranging if you suddenly change hours like this, whilst it is a secondary school, it is catering from 11 year olds up. This means in many cases parents or carers will have to be able to get out of work to collect them, and essentially, if this went wide scale will create two substantially different school pick up times for secondary and primary school children.

While another person said: "Can't see an issue with this as a few schools already do it."