An independent school which has educated youngsters for 53 years has closed.

Lessons at Shipley's Victoria Park Preparatory School - which boasts Olympic swimmer Adrian Moorhouse among its past pupils - ended on Thursday as its headteacher, and owner, is retiring to pastures new.

Phyllis Sanderson has taught at the school for the past 40 years and has been only its second headteacher.

She took over when the school's founder Marjorie Cragg retired in 1986, and bought the school with her husband Jack two years later.

Mrs Sanderson said: "I have enjoyed every moment of working at the school and feel we have achieved what we set out to achieve. I am looking forward to pursuing interests such as walking and playing bridge again."

Mrs Sanderson, from Burley-in-Wharfedale, said that all the children and staff had found places at other schools.

She had hoped to sell the school, but after a buyer pulled out at the last minute, decided to close it down instead.

She said the school, which is a feeder school for the district's grammar schools, had been successful because of its emphasis on smaller classes and giving each pupil individual attention.

"We are a small school, with small classes, which is why a lot of parents sent their children here," she said.

"Our school motto is 'getting the foundations right' and hopefully when the children leave us they do so with confidence and ready to go onto the next much bigger school."

The school was founded in 1951 when Mrs Cragg started teaching a small number of four-year-old children in her Victoria Park home.

As pupil numbers grew, she moved into the adjacent house, where the school is now. At its peak the school had 70 pupils aged between four and ten.

Over the years the school opened a nursery and taught children aged three to eight, from across the district including Menston, Halifax, Bradford, Baildon and Bingley.

The children celebrated the closure of the school with a fun day.