COUNCILLORS have pledged to "keep on top of" an ambitious strategy to improve education in the district.

As reported in yesterday's Telegraph & Argus, the authority has announced its latest education improvement plan, which includes the target of having every school rated good or better by 2017.

The strategy was presented to the Bradford School's Forum, made up of teachers, governors and council representatives, at a meeting yesterday and was "well accepted" by the members.

It will require a fast turnaround in many areas, as the Council has described school performance in the past year as being disappointing and that "urgent action" was needed.

Discussing the new strategy, Paul Burluraux, chairman of the schools forum and head teacher at Grange Technology College, Bradford, said: "The strategy was very well accepted by members of the forum. It will provide us with a context for when we're making decisions in the future.

"You do have to give yourself stretching targets. We live in a rapidly changing educational world. The most important thing about this is that the needs of children are being met."

The Council's children's services scrutiny committee has already set out a number of ways to improve education in the district, and receives monthly updates on how they are progressing.

Its chairman, Councillor Malcolm Sykes, said it would also be asking for regular updates on this latest strategy, but feared the targets could prove unrealistic.

He said: "The strategy is full of aspirations, and I hope we can do it. However setting targets like this can be a bit self-defeating sometimes.

"We will be looking at these as part of the scrutiny committee, we've made a commitment that we will keep on top of this."

Currently only 63 per cent of Bradford's schools are rated good or better.

Plans to improve school standards include an increased focus on recruiting top quality teachers, making regular Council-led visits to schools, allocating 'super heads' who will look after a number of schools, creating literacy hubs and offering extra assistance to schools where there are high numbers of "new to English" children.

Councillor Debbie Davies, the Conservative spokesman for children's services had asked for an update on how successful the Council's previous improvement strategy, which ran from 2012 to 2015, had been.

At a full council meeting on Tuesday, Councillor Ralph Berry, executive for children's services, replied: "We have worked hard with school partnerships on our joint overriding policy to rapidly improve outcomes for children and young people.

"That being said results in 2014 were extremely disappointing. There has been a trend of improvement in recent years but we have failed to narrow the gap with the national picture.

"There was a steady improvement in GCSE results between 2012 and 2013, however, there has been a very disappointing set of results this year and we are working closely with schools and academies to put in robust action plans."

Cllr Berry did add that "current calculations" point to all schools getting an Ofsted rating of good or better by 2017.