A REUNION for former students of the Middlesbrough Day Training College for Teachers is being held on Thursday, April 24.

The college was established in an old convent in Borough Road in 1964 to overcome a teacher shortage in the Tees Valley.

Mature students from across Teesside, Darlington, Durham and North Yorkshire were recruited and, because of their experience in other walks of life, it was decided they would only need two terms of training before being let loose in the classroom as opposed to the usual three.

However, when the 64 students arrived to start their first term, the conversion of the convent was so incomplete that they were sent into local schools for a couple of weeks to observe.

Over the following years, the size of the college grew, and it regularly changed its name. In 1978, it became the education department of Teesside Polytechnic, which, in turn, became Teesside University.

The university is holding a reunion for all of its teaching graduates and the first class of 1964 are hoping for a good turn-out.

For further details about the event, go to tees.ac.uk/ sections/alumni