Hanson School


Hanson School is a foundation school in Bradford, West Yorkshire, England.

Admissions

Hanson School is situated between Bolton and Five Lane Ends.

Head teachers

Grammar school

The Hanson Grammar School was designed by Charles Henry Hargreaves and opened on Byron Street near Barkerend Road in 1897. Boys' and girls' schools were next door to each other. On 23 February 1911, a 16-year-old girl was killed by apparently being blown into the air by a gale, but what was known was that she had fallen from a height of around 25 feet.
In 1967 the girls' school had moved to a new building on Sutton Avenue. In the early 1970s, although retaining the name of a grammar school, the intake was comprehensive. The girls' school had around 500 girls, with 80 in the sixth form. The boys' school had around 550 boys with 120 in the sixth form.

Comprehensive

It became the co-educational Hanson School in 1972, situated at the Sutton Avenue site. In the 1980s, the Sutton Avenue site was known as Hanson Upper School. In July 2011 the school moved to a different building but within the same Sutton Avenue grounds.

Special measures

In 2010, the secondary school was placed in special measures following an Ofsted inspection. Derek Needham, who was acting head teacher, following Tim Brookes' resignation following the inspection, commented on the school being put into special measures saying:
"I do not believe Hanson School is a bad school, the Ofsted inspectors didn't look at all aspects of the school, they just focused on the school's many problems rather than its little achievements".
In 2014 Hanson School was in the media because of the high number of students, more than 200, sent home for not adhering to the uniform policy.
In January 2018 the school came out of special measures, and is currently graded by Ofsted as "Requires Improvement".

Campus

Hanson has four floors, there are four sections to Hanson, 1, 2, 3 and 4. There is a reasonably large 6th form centre. In Hanson there is also a large footballing centre, home to "Goals", which houses 15+ five aside pitches and 1 full size football pitch.
Since the end of the 2008–09 year work began on a new school building which was completed by 2011. The building of Pulse Gym was also completed at the end of November 2010, which offers a 65 station gym, interactive centre, sports hall and 2 dance studios. The gym is for pupil use as well as for members of the public.

Sports and traditions

At Hanson there is an annual sports day, and annual inter-form football. There are also regular non-uniform days in which students usually pay £1 to a certain charity.

Academic performance

Unlike many schools in Bradford, Hanson is achieving high GCSE results with 65% of students getting 5 or more A*'s to C's in 2010. This is a 10% increase on last years results.
In BTEC, Hanson was in the UK's top 20.

Notable former pupils