Alison Collings, Head of Bankfield
Alison Collings came to Bankfield as its founding Head in 1997. She has a breadth of experience in pre-school and early years’ education, mostly in the Harrogate area, but she also enjoyed a three year spell in Spain teaching English to early years’ classes. As a result, all Bankfield pupils learn some Spanish in their time there.
Alison is very well qualified and has a host of diplomas and certificates in many aspects of both early years’ education and teaching children with special educational needs. She has lost none of her enthusiasm for updating her qualifications and training, an essential quality in the current heavily-regulated world of early years schooling.
Even more importantly, Alison exudes the qualities that allow Bankfield to flourish as a tremendous foundation for so many children’s first steps on their educational journey. Her affection for her charges is palpable and her devotion to providing the best opportunities for them is unwavering. She epitomises the School’s central value that everything that goes on within it should be in the interests of the pupils.
Her colleagues respond very positively to her commitment to the values that allow childhood to remain a magical and treasured experience, despite the pressures of other aspects of the world in which we live.
Under her leadership, Bankfield has been consistently rated as “outstanding” and “excellent” in a number of OFSTED and ISI inspections. It is one of the few early years’ departments in North Yorkshire that has been consistently distinguished with the local authority’s “highly effective setting” award.
Alison is married and has two grown up children, a daughter who is an occupational therapist and a son reading geography at university. She enjoys walking, skiing and cooking, and – there’s no escape from her vocation – looking after her very young grandson.
Alison works very closely with Rachel Colbourn, the Head of Highfield, the School’s prep department, and the Headmistress, Rhiannon Wilkinson. They are all convinced that the earliest stages of school are of vital importance in every child’s education. They share a determination to maintain Bankfield’s enviable reputation and to continue to develop all sections of HLC.