THE number of Bradford schools below Government standards has fallen by almost half in the last year.

However, in other areas of educational performance, the district is still behind the national average, a new report reveals.

Tomorrow, Bradford Schools Forum will look at how schools in the district performed in the last academic year.

Results from 2015/16 show there have been improvements in several areas, including early years, phonics and the percentage of pupils gaining five or more GCSEs, including English and maths, at A* to C grade.

But when it came to Key Stage 2 reading, writing and maths results, Bradford was ranked a lowly 134 out of 150 local authorities nationally.

The Schools Forum is made up of representatives from all types of schools, including academies, and decides where education funding should be directed.

It will use the latest results to target the schools and pupils “where the greatest levels of improvement are required.”

The Government judges schools to be failing if they fall below a “floor standard” in their results. If a school falls below that standard, the Department for Education suggests it becomes an academy in order to improve.

The latest results show that between summer 2015 and summer 2016, the number of Bradford schools judged to fall below the standard fell from 15 to seven.

The report says: “Based on the provisional data, the indications are that the number of schools below floor standards will reduce to seven, or five per cent of schools, from 15 (ten per cent) in 2015.

“This demonstrates a significant improvement in 2016.”

In early years, the number of pupils reaching a “good” level of development rose by four per cent, to 66 per cent. Nationally, results improved by three per cent. The level in Bradford has increased by 11 per cent in the past three years.

However, at Key Stage 1 Bradford is slightly behind the national averages. Seventy per cent of pupils reached the expected standard in reading, compared to 74 per cent nationally, 64 per cent met that level in writing, against 66 per cent nationally and 70 per cent reached the target in maths, where the national figure was 73 per cent.

At Key Stage 2, 46 per cent of pupils met expected standards in reading, writing and maths, compared to 53 per cent nationally.

At GCSE level, Bradford’s percentage of students achieving five A*to C GCSEs, including English and maths, was 48 per cent. This was an improvement of 2.5 percentage points on the district’s results last year - 45.5 per cent.

On post-16 results, the report says: “There are concerns that Bradford’s results are not improving over time.”

The forum meets in Bradford City Hall at 8am.