MORE than half of secondary pupils and a quarter of primary pupils in the district are studying at schools that are judged to be not good enough, the country's education watchdog has revealed.

The Ofsted annual report shows that Bradford schools are among the worst in the country, with the chances of pupils attending a good primary or secondary school having decreased in 2014.

It places Bradford seventh bottom in the country among 150 education authorities with only 40 per cent of pupils going to secondary schools which are good or better.

There are only 13 authorities in the country where that number is 50 per cent or lower.

For primary pupils, Bradford is 23rd from bottom nationally, with 73 per cent of students attending primaries which are good or outstanding.

The proportion of children going to primary and secondary schools in the district that are rated as requiring improvement or inadequate by Ofsted has risen by eight percentage points on the previous year.

In the North East, Yorkshire and Humber region, Bradford is third from bottom when it comes to secondary schools, and fifth from bottom for primary schools.

Bradford Telegraph and Argus:

The figures follow a pledge made by Bradford Council in October to set itself the target of making sure every one of its schools is rated good or outstanding by 2017.

Michael Jameson, the authority's strategic director of children’s services, last night admitted there was a lot of work to do.

He said: “We have a ‘no excuses’ culture and we are taking urgent action to rapidly drive up standards.

“We recently launched our new education improvement strategy and it contains deliberately ambitious targets and practical measures to improve school leadership and share best practice. We are setting extremely high standards for our schools and we are providing them with robust challenge and support to help them achieve the highest possible standards.

“But there is a lot of work to do. We have seen improvements at Key Stage 5 this year in the Bradford district and we have many great examples, particularly at primary school level, but our schools now have to deliver right across the board.”

Nick Hudson, Ofsted director for North East, Yorkshire and Humber, said: “The fact that Bradford is ranked 144 out of 150 nationally is clearly a concern."

He added: "I think the answers lie in secondary schools in Bradford and secondary schools on the borders of Bradford that are performing well.

"The Council should maybe look beyond its borders to see why other schools are doing better than those in Bradford are. My advice is the Council needs to seek links with these areas."

COMMENT: EVERY EFFORT NEEDED TO BOOST SCHOOLS

Councillor Ralph Berry, the executive for children's services on the Council, said: "We have been working to improve schools for some time. Ofsted has told us that the partnerships we have are the right approach.

"We believe we have the right mechanisms to raise our game. There needs to be far more dialogue between schools. There are some schools that are performing very well and delivering good results in deprived areas and others are not.

"It is not acceptable that there are these differences. We need to need to work out what these schools are doing right and share this. We also have to hold schools to account and must challenge them to improve more."

Cllr Debbie Davies, Conservative spokesman for education, said: "We need to look at how other local authorities in similar situations have improved education. Cllr Berry has been doing this job for a few years, and he is still saying the same things.

"We have plenty of meetings where we talk about improving schools and it all sounds fine but does this ever get beyond the meeting?

"We need to look at why the best teachers aren't always coming to our schools, and if it means offering to pay people more to attract better teachers we could look at that."

Cllr Jeanette Sunderland, the Liberal Democrat group leader, said: "I think what we're seeing is a failure to robustly challenge under performance. Our schools are just not improving at a fast enough rate.

"Promises were made when education came back under council control that education would improve but it's not happening.

"It just seems like we lack the urgency to improve schools."

However, Ian Murch, Bradford spokesman for the National Union of Teachers, was sceptical of the findings. He said: "Ofsted often finds what it is looking for. There are high levels of deprivation and in some inner city schools there are a lot of children who don't speak English as a first language.

"These schools are measured to the same standards. Performance of children from some of the poorest families are measured against children from well off areas whose parents went to university."

Pam Milner, of the NASUWT union, said parents needed to get behind school improvements, adding: "Many schools are having to cut back, and have bigger classes with fewer staff. Standards in school is a much bigger issue than Ofsted would have you believe."

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