THE head teacher at one of York's top secondary schools is retiring after a decade at the helm.

Huntington School head teacher Chris Bridge will be 60 this year and feels that after ten years as a York head teacher and 37 years in the profession, it's time to seek out fresh challenges.

Mr Bridge will leave the school at the end of the summer term and will be replaced by John Tomsett, a former Huntington deputy head who is now head teacher at Lady Lumley's School, Pickering.

Mr Bridge will continue in education as a Government advisor on the Secondary Heads Reference Group, which advises the director general for schools, Ralph Tabberer, and as a National Leader of Education (NLE), advising schools whose Ofsted reports have shown up serious weaknesses.

Before coming to York, Mr Bridge was head teacher at Brigshaw High in Leeds for six years and said when he arrived, Huntington was already a highly successful school.

Since the Government introduced the Value Added (VA) measures - which take into account the progress pupils make between the tests they take at the end of primary school and GCSE - Mr Bridge said Huntington School has continued to go from strength to strength.

Results had shown that over the years the school had consistently had the best VA not only in York, but often in the county and among the best in the country.

Mr Bridge said: "We have got a proud record and I think a lot of that is down to the fact that at this school we almost don't let students fail.

"I'm very proud of the fact that we are not quick to get rid of difficult pupils, we keep them on our books to get success for them."

Mr Bridge described running a successful school as being very much a team effort.

He said: "You do nothing as yourself as a head teacher.

"The story of how you lead a school is nothing to do with "hero heads", it's to do with teams of people and as head of this school I've been very fortunate, because there is a great team to work with."

Mr Bridge said in terms of the school as a business the turnover in ten years has shot through the roof from about £4,000 a year to £1 million.

He said part of this money has come about by staff trading their IT skills and winning lucrative contracts to train other schools.

The money is put to good use in projects like the vast new extension to the school building which is due to open to pupils on April 16 and to which the school contributed £800,000.

Mr Tomsett said: "My challenge will be to maintain Huntington's extremely high standards and take the school forward."