Anthony Smith is executive head of Hipperholme and Lightcliffe High School (HLHS) on the outskirts of Halifax as well as the Fountain Springs Day Nursery and Maltings College which are based in a Grade II listed former brewery in the town. Next summer, he is swimming the Channel for Cancer Research UK.

Prince of tides

What are your schools like ?

HLHS is a large secondary community school with 1,500 students which converted to academy status last year. Needing some extra room, we had the good fortune to acquire a building that had already been refurbished as an independent primary school which went bankrupt. We established a private day nursery there which not only provided HLHS with revenue but also provided excellent work experience for our students doing child care courses. We applied for – and have been granted – free school status because the Maltings had such potential as a site.

Why travel the free school route?

It’s an interesting development given that I’m an active ASCL member but using the status and our academy freedoms enables us to develop the type of school we want. The college for 400 students opens next year and will be centred on the world of work. Along with the nursery, we are working with a national hair and beauty chain and a professional cookery school to provide the sort of courses that ensure students are what employers need.

Were you always going to end up in education?

Mum was a modern languages teacher and dad was a head in Derbyshire but I went to work for a civil engineering consultancy in London before I decided that teaching was what I really wanted to do. I worked on the design for the sewerage network of the Greenwich Peninsular and what became the Millennium Dome. Back then, it was always intended to be a temporary structure to be replaced by multi-purpose housing.

Did you always want to be a head?

I wanted to be a good teacher then a good head of department and then I became a member of the senior management team that brought a school out of special measures. I’m still a relatively young head now and having a young family has been very positive and beneficial. We have family commitments on Monday evenings and I need to leave at 4pm. So I do leave at 4pm and the staff feel that I’m no different to anyone else with young children. It helps counteract any comments there may be about peoples’ ages and doing the job.

What were your first teaching experiences like?

I taught at a normal comprehensive school where I formed all my values and beliefs. It was in the middle of the miners’ strike and working in that kind of school for the benefit of the community is where I always wanted to be.

You certainly like to keep busy ; next summer, you are swimming the Channel for Cancer Research UK

Yes! It will take months of training with long sessions in the pool and time in the gym, plus cold water training in sundry rivers and seaside resorts across the north of England. Since I signed up for it I’ve found out that fewer people have swum the Channel than have climbed Everest. 

See www.justgiving.com/anthonychannelswim for more information, blogs and to donate.

• Interview by John Holt and Julie Nightingale

Pro.file

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