Bradford Bulls trio Shontayne Hape, Chris Feather and Matt Cook helped Haycliffe Special School celebrate their first anniversary since becoming a sports college.

"We are the only special school in Yorkshire to have such a title and there are only 14 in the country," said a proud director of sport Barry Holden.

The first-anniversary jamboree took the form of a one-day sports festival, and he said: "The Bulls players really got involved in meeting the kids and trying several of the activities.

"The idea for a festival came from our headmaster Keith Fair. Its aim was to unite the com-munity, and schools we invited to attend were our partners Grange, Bolling Special School, St Oswald's Primary and Netherlands Avenue Primary."

Among the attractions on offer were a rock climbing wall, a bungee trampoline, go-karting, cycling skills and Concept2 indoor rowing machines, which were loaned by Yorkshire Martyrs School.

In addition there was five-a-side football, tri-golf, table tennis and a Billy Bantam penalty shoot-out competition. Also coaches from Bradford Council's Sport and Leisure Service coached youngsters at both cricket and basketball.

Mr Holden, explaining the process by which Haycliffe School was granted its honour, said: "You put an application in for specialist sports college status and they look at your plans for sport within the school and how you accommodate groups.

"When they decide to accept you, you have specialist sports college status for five years and you are inspected by OFSTED when you want to maintain your status. We have always had gifted and talented pupils and our disability athletes have won awards, as have our cricketers.

"Also we have been acclaimed for our Rock Challenge in dance and for our football teams.

"Currently we have cricketer Usman Ahmed who has been selected for England, and we have cricket nets which are used by Wibsey Park Chapel Cricket Club and Grange School.

Four other schools in Bradford are sports colleges - Tong, Yorkshire Martyrs, Oakbank and Thornton - but Haycliffe are the only special school.

"Come the autumn we will be joined by another school from Halifax," said Mr Holden.