This is my 2000th post on Interesting Times and it's fitting that it is about a simply brilliant school doing amazing things here in Leeds...

I started the day early at Bankside Primary School with Sarah Rutty, headteacher and some of her colleagues, before being joined by Cllr Roger Harrington, chair of governors. Bankside Primary School is an amazing example of primary education at its brilliant best serving a vibrant, interesting and exciting part of central Leeds.

The school is having a new building constructed on its' existing site and Sarah, Roger and I joined the team travelling on the school buses to the Fir Tree site where half the school is working while we build a brilliant new Bankside Primary School. I travelled with the reception classes; a wonderful group of children, and their teachers, who talked all the way to the Fir Tree site.

It was great to visit the Fir Tree site again; which has been transformed into a brilliant learning environment by Sarah's colleagues. It was wonderful to walk around with Sarah and Roger and to talk to Sarah's colleagues and some of their wonderful children including the impressive School Council who talked to us about the things they were putting in the time capsule we were going to bury underneath the new school.

Sarah, Roger and I went back to Bankside Primary School to visit the remaining classes and meet more of Sarah's colleagues and children before we had the photo shoot with colleagues from the builders, Kier Northern.

And finally, I met with the 'Green Team' a sub-group of the School Council, who are working with the builders to create the greenest school in Leeds. One of the highlights of the visit was that they made me an honorary member of the 'Green Team' and I look forward to working with the children to achieve this ambitious goal.
Chris