The oldest and youngest schools in the district are forming an unlikely partnership to raise standards.

On the face of it Bingley Grammar School would appear to have little in common with its new partner. Founded in 1529, it is the oldest secondary school in the district, serves one of Bradford's most affluent areas and as a foundation school has been able to construct a state-of-the-art stone-built extension - on time.

By contrast, the Challenge College is only a few weeks old and will be based in Manningham, one of Bradford's most multi-cultural and deprived areas. It is currently using an old middle school building with temporary classrooms and will have to wait until September 2001 for new buildings to be ready.

But the schools' headteachers feel they share a common philosophy on raising standards and are getting together to share expertise and ideas.

Bingley Grammar has a duty to offer advice and help to other schools, having been awarded beacon status but its partnership with Challenge is to be equal, with ideas flowing in both directions. Bingley headteacher John Patterson believes there is plenty his school, with its excellent academic record, can pick up from the fledgling college.

"They have put in place innovative and imaginative management structures and systems for monitoring learning. They have made a big push to include information technology in all aspects of the curriculum and then there is the way they have sold the school to parents.''

His counterpart, Gareth Dawkins, sees the relationship working well in the other direction. Many of his staff have only taught in middle schools and he hopes that Bingley teachers will be able to help train them to teach older age groups.

"Bingley Grammar School is acknowledging that we have strengths and we are clearly recognising their reputation," he said.

Joint working groups are already being set up in science, English and technology.

Initially, parents were sceptical about the college, partly due to uncertainty over its future. With Bingley Grammar on board, Mr Dawkins hopes that people will recognise it as an innovative school, committed to setting high standards with a big emphasis on information technology.