The first school of its kind in the Bradford district is due to open in Keighley next month.

Tiffany Bisby, a science teacher, is to operate the Montessori system at West Cliffe School, in Skipton Road.

The new £1,000-a-term private school is leasing the former Keighley Prep School premises. Owners Keighley Ghoshiya Muslim Association will run a supplementary school during out-of-school hours using temporary classrooms on a separate site next door.

Tiffany is West Yorkshire representative for the Montessori Early Years Forum. She became interested in the system through dissatisfaction with the education offered in state schools for her daughter Eleanor, now ten.

Tiffany trained as a homeopath at the same time as she trained for teaching ten years ago. She was attracted by the whole-person approach to education offered by Montessori, which she says helps children reach their potential by developing intellectually, physically, socially and emotionally. The system, which is used across the world, was pioneered by Maria Montessori, Italy's first woman doctor/psychologist, in 1907.

Tiffany, a St Nicholas-qualified Montessori directress and has been teaching at a Hebden Bridge School for the last two years, says each child progresses at his or her own pace and the system offers both structure and freedom.

West Cliffe will eventually cater for around 40 children up to the age of 12. Places for pre-school children will be available in the autumn. All staff will be qualified or trained in the Montessori method which Tiffany hopes will be recognised by Bradford council as a specialist system of early-years education.

The team will include Tiffany's mother Anne Bisby, who formerly ran a ballet school and will be offering dance classes. The pupils will include Eleanor, who has designed the school logo, and her four-year-old sister Amelia.

Tiffany says being a private school it is not subject to 'the whims of politicians'. "This is based on children's needs and not on what is politically expedient," she says. "It gets results. This is about children achieving their full potential whatever their background."

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