The point of the School Awards has always been celebrating the excellence in our schools.

Although Bradford found itself near the bottom of the national tables when the last GCSE results were totted up, the councillor in charge of children's services in Bradford says there are still hundreds of young people who deserve congratulations for their individual successes.

Councillor Ralph Berry, Executive Member for Children and Young People's Services, said there were still "examples of excellence" that should be celebrated, and negative headlines about education in Bradford shouldn't tarnish the hard work so many put into their GCSE studies.

But he said the main focus had to be on improving schools, and that the poorest performing ones had to learn from the best.

He also said it was difficult to compare results this year to previous years, as the government introduced many changes to the system in the past 12 months.

These included only pupils' first attempts, and not re-sits, being counted in the league tables. Some qualifications, such as the IGCSEs that many pupils at independent schools sit, were also not counted in this year's tables.

Cllr Berry said: “Firstly we must congratulate the many young people who worked so hard and achieved well in their GCSEs this year. Those individuals, their schools and their families can justly be very proud.

“Nevertheless we fully accept the scale of the challenge our district faces to drive up standards. We have a 'no excuses culture' and we are doing all we can within our powers to support and challenge schools, so that schools can deliver real improvements at a rapid pace.

“As well as working closer than ever with our schools, we have brought in independent expertise to look at what is being done to support schools in delivering improvements – this means families can be reassured that the measures schools are taking to improve education attainment are based on proven best practice, including the lessons learned during the successful London Challenge that helped transform achievement in the capital over a 10 year period.

“There was a big change to the GCSE league tables this year, which makes it difficult to make any valid comparisons with previous years' results. Until this year, the league tables were based on the final qualifications that students actually came away with, but this year they were based on the different data of how students did in their first attempt. Despite this, a number of our schools held their own and a few bucked the trend and improved their results. These examples of excellence are to be celebrated.

“Working closely with the Bradford Partnership of secondary schools, we are now focused on spreading that best practice. We have set deliberately ambitious targets, but the evidence-based action we are taking is designed to multiply those success stories right across the district.”