Bradford has a long-established reputation for pioneering in education. That seems likely to be boosted by the interesting experiment at the giant 1,700-pupil Rhodesway School which will see it split into three separate units when it reopens at the start of September.

There will no doubt be plenty of people watching to see how this venture works out. Many other schools up and down the country have problems which, in part at least, can be put down to their size.

The model devised for Rhodesday, with a sixth-form centre and two smaller secondary schools each with their own identity and with equal status, is a bold attempt to introduce a more manageable scale.

There is apparently a lot of interest in the experiment, judging by the ease with which the school has succeeded in replacing staff.

It could reasonably have been expected that a school with as poor an Ofsted report as Rhodesway received last November would have had great difficulty finding the 48 new teachers it needed to replace those who were providing the "high proportion of unsatisfactory teaching" cited in the report as one of the serious weaknesses.

The decision not to renew the contracts of 20 supply teachers and the loss of 25 permanent teachers to other jobs could have been expected to put applicants off.

However, staff seem to have been flocking to Bradford, drawn by a reputation for innovation which Rhodesway is fast cultivating and which will be enhanced if this plan proves to be the success it deserves to be.