The latest announcement from education chiefs in Bradford cannot fail to cause consternation and anxiety among teaching staff, governors, parents and pupils.

Poorly-performing schools will have 18 months to improve or could face the axe in a bid to cut down on Bradford's surplus classroom places.

Bradford is no stranger to these problems, not least the fact that the district was well on the way, through hard work and difficult decisions, to approaching the Government's target of no more than five per cent average surpluses in schools, only to find that Westminster moved the goal-posts and decided it would not brook any surplus places at all.

The fact remains that Bradford cannot afford to maintain empty desks in its classrooms, so some solution needs to be found as an urgent way of addressing this.

But those schools who might find themselves not performing as well as they would hope and which are not perhaps the first choice for parents to send their children will find today's news extra pressure they could well do without.

This will be a difficult 18 months of uncertainty and added anxiety on top of other ongoing problems, with the fear that at the end of the period whole schools could close unless they show a marked improvement.

Throughout this time it is a priority that the schools, parents and especially the pupils can count on all the support they need to ensure that the education of the children - after all, the entire point of any decisions that are taken or discussed on this matter - is maintained to the best possible standard and with minimum disruptions.