A double-decker bus rolls into the car park of Dixons Marchbank Primary School in Bradford and, as the doors fold open, a gaggle of teaching students pile off.

It’s just one stop on a bus tour to promote Bradford’s schools to talented would-be teachers - and TES has a ticket to ride.

The scheme is the brainchild of Bradford Council’s recruitment and retention strategy manager, Sara Rawnsley - a gregarious ex-primary head who’s made it her mission to crack the city’s recruitment problems.

Bradford’s school system has been troubled for a number of years. It is the fifth-worst local authority in the country for the proportion of pupils in primary schools that are rated less than “good”.

And last month it was designated an “opportunity area” - one of 12 locations being targeted by the government as a “social mobility cold spot”.

Route to success

Attracting more top teachers to the district is seen as part of the solution to raising standards, but Bradford has an image problem.

“Bradford is still, despite many years, associated with riots…associated with things that aren’t true,” Rawnsley says. “We dispel the myths and the barriers for working in our district.”

At Dixons Marchbank - where the majority of pupils come from a minority ethnic background and speak English as an additional language - the student teachers on the tour are shown around by acting principal Helen Haunch.

As the trainees file into classrooms, wide-eyed pupils swivel in their seats to politely study the visitors.

Haunch tells TES that trainees who visit through the bus-tour scheme are “pleasantly surprised” to have their expectations of Bradford confounded.

“We do really struggle sometimes for good-quality recruitment,” she says. “There’s almost a fear of teaching in Bradford.”

Haunch says cultural unfamiliarity means some people are anxious about teaching in schools serving a predominantly British-Pakistani, Muslim community.

But she believes that giving trainees the opportunity to visit the school and meet its pupils banishes any worries. “The children are delightful [and] the parents want the best for their children.”

‘We really struggle for good-quality recruitment There’s almost a fear of teaching in Bradford’

Haunch sells Dixons Marchbank to the touring students as a place where they can have a much bigger impact than in other schools - precisely because of the high proportion of disadvantaged pupils and the language challenges.

“Our children make far more progress than they do [elsewhere],” she says proudly.

After lunch, it’s back onto the bus to head to the next stop. During the ride, Rawnsley sketches out the evolution of the scheme.

Two years ago, 15 students signed up to take the inaugural tour. “I arrived on the day, and two people turned up,” she scowls.

While the no-shows were “deeply disappointing”, there were promising signs. The two people who “rattled around” on the bus with her that first day both got jobs within 48 hours.

With some effective promotion behind the scheme, 360 students took part in 2015-16, and about 400 are expected to do so this year.

The bus pulls up outside its next stop: Burley and Woodhead Church of England Primary School. Just down the road from well-heeled Ilkley, with views across the rolling Yorkshire Dales and an overwhelmingly white British intake, the contrast with inner-city Dixons Marchbank is stark.

Headteacher Joanne Siddall points across the playground to the “conservation area” and the stream that sits within the school’s grounds. She tells TES that she values being part of the tour to show trainees that Bradford is a more varied place than is often supposed.

“When people talk about Bradford nationally, they see it as just deprived areas, inner city… it’s really important that people get to see that Bradford isn’t just about that - Bradford’s really diverse,” Siddall adds.

Rawnsley agrees: “There is a school for everybody across the district.”

Riding high

While the bus tour is undoubtedly the most eye-catching initiative, there is more to Bradford’s recruitment drive.

The council has awarded £660,000 in total to recruit and retain teachers over three years across the district’s local authority-maintained and academy schools.

Another key part of the strategy is the “Talent Bank”. This involves teachers being interviewed and then marketed to Bradford schools using a database, which the council says is the first of its kind in the country.

Rawnsley describes it as “Match.com for teachers”, adding: “I’m doing the introduction [between schools and teachers], but I can’t make them fall in love.”

‘People talk about Bradford as just deprived areas, inner city [but] it’s really diverse’

Trainees are also supported through “Journey to Your First Teaching Post” workshops, which give advice about applying for jobs, writing personal statements and interview preparation.

Francesca Clayton, 24, one of the trainees on the tour, says that the Talent Bank and support “alleviates quite a lot of the stress” of applying for jobs.

And there’s evidence that Bradford’s strategy is beginning to yield results. According to the council, 90 newly qualified teachers started jobs last September thanks to its schemes, and the proportion of nursery and primary schools reporting recruitment issues has fallen from 58 per cent to 32 per cent since they were introduced. The council has enough faith in the initiatives to be rolling them out to secondary schools this year.

So could Bradford’s ideas be applied on a wider basis? Rawnsley certainly thinks so, and Walsall Council - which has many of the same issues as Bradford - has been in touch to express its interest.

Improving schools in the North is a well-trodden policy area of late. But policymakers looking at boosting teacher supply in Northern cities could do worse than hopping on the bus to see what’s going on in Bradford.

@whazell