The success of a "cluster" of eight Bradford schools in bidding for £89,000 of National Lottery money is a remarkable example of teamwork.

The heads of the Manningham schools have for many years been meeting at half term to discuss ways of working together on such issues as raising attendance levels. Their decision to take this spirit of co-operation further with a joint Lottery bid to provide after-school opportunities for their pupils in a wide range of activities clearly impressed the administrators of the Lottery's New Opportunities Fund, who have come up with the cash to keep the scheme going for three years.

It is an imaginative project based on the radical view that schools should not be open merely during traditional school hours to provide a conventional education but should offer additional activities to help to turn their pupils into well-rounded citizens of tomorrow.

By pooling their resources and facilities, the eight schools have been able to come up with a wide-ranging selection of subjects from information technology to outdoors pursuits, from creative arts to sport. Acting alone, it would have been impossible for any of them to offer anything like the same diversity.

The outdoors activities and sporting sides of the scheme are particularly important given the recent focus on the poor state of fitness of many youngsters. The project as a whole, though, should help to get the message across to the children that getting an education is not just something that you do within school hours. It is an ongoing thing that belongs in the mainstream of life.

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