The learning gap between national and Bradford results achieved by ten and 11-year-olds widened in the final year of private company Education Bradford’s ten-year drive to match national standards, it has been revealed.

The number of Bradford district pupils obtaining level four or above in both English and maths last year dropped from 73 per cent last year to 71 per cent, while the national average rose one percentage point to 74 per cent.

Results of Key Stage Two Standard Assessment Tests published by the Department for Education yesterday also revealed 120 of the 152 authorities across the country achieved higher averages than Bradford.

Last year’s results saw delighted chiefs at Education Bradford announce they had honoured their commitment to close the gap at Key Stage Two.

Reacting to this year’s dip, Councillor Ralph Berry, executive member for children and young people’s services, said: “We work in partnership with schools which underperform and where additional support is needed to bring about rapid improvement. The support we give ensures they have focused plans to improve, in particular, the quality of teaching and learning and of leadership and management, at all levels including governance. Schools are challenged and supported to help improve outcomes for children.

“We also work with collaboratives or groups of schools to develop their capacity to improve the standards in their schools. This enables schools to work together to address the challenges faced in different parts of the District, share their strengths and expertise, and monitor each other’s progress to ensure all children get a high quality education.”

Coun Berry said the results did not reflect the progress many children were making from low starting points, which he said was reflected in the high number of schools judged to be good or outstanding by Ofsted.

“Although these figures are disappointing when compared to the previous year, figures from the last few years show an overall upward trend at Key Stage 2,” said Coun Berry.

He confirmed the target for Education Bradford when it was awarded the £300 million contact in 2001 to support schools had been to close the gap on the national average, an objective it achieved last year, despite falling behind again this year.

He said: “Clearly we didn’t achieve what we aimed for with the contract – that is why we re-engineered everything and brought everything back in-house.

“So what we have got to make sure is everything we do now is make sure a modern, streamlined and simplified system is devoted to narrowing that gap.”

A total of 78 per cent of pupils in Bradford achieved level four in English alone and 78 per cent achieved level four in maths alone – compared with national averages of 82 per cent for English and 80 per cent for maths.

Councillor Roger L’Amie, education spokesman for the Council's Conservative group, described the results as disappointing and indicated the amount of work needed to get educational standards in Bradford to an “acceptable” standard.

He said: “With respect to Education Bradford, it’s difficult in a sense to make a sensible comment with one year’s results.

“My intuitive feeling is while they did improve things, they could have improved them a bit more.”

Ian Murch, assistant secretary of the NUT in Bradford, said: “Most people were agreed Education Bradford wasn’t a brilliant model of how to do things, which is why nobody was in favour of continuing to do it. That’s not to say there weren’t good people working in it, but as a way of doing things, everyone agreed it didn’t work that way.

“We have to accept there will be fluctuations every year, that is just the way stats work – if it was going year after year in one direction you would know there was a problem.

“It is a big achievement for Bradford to get up to the national average because it has so many children, compared to the national average, who begin school with a disadvantage, either because they come from a family where levels of education in the older generation are lower than other places, or they have English as a second language.

“Those things do make a difference in terms of the start children begin with.

“In some Bradford schools you have got an awful lot of catching up at the beginning of the children’s education, so it is a challenge.”

But Mr Murch pointed out that over the last ten years Education Bradford had not met all the targets they were set.

Pam Milner, regional spokesman for the NASUWT, said: “Hopefully this is a blip, because there can be a cohort that goes through and does cause a blip.

“Obviously it’s a concern – I do not think it is the fault of teachers because teachers are being subjected to all the monitoring God sends.

“I wouldn’t like to brand Education Bradford a failure because there have been successes, and to blame them totally would be unfair.

“We do have years that go through and certain cohorts do cause blips. Hopefully next year we will bounce back.”

There were however seven primary schools across the district celebrating after they were named among the top 200 schools in the country, with 100 per cent of the eligible pupils at each school achieving Level Four in English and maths.

St Joseph’s Catholic Primary School, Bingley, Long Lee Primary School, Keighley, Bailiff Bridge Junior and Infant School, Brighouse, Embsay Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, Skipton, Littletown Junior Infant and Nursery School, Liversedge, Hopton Primary School, Mirfield, and Crowlees Church of England Voluntary Controlled Junior and Infant School, Mirfield, were all named in the top 200.

Horton Grange Primary School, Bradford, and Newhall Park Primary School, Bradford, were named among the most improved schools in England while St Walburga’s Catholic Primary School, Shipley, Embasy Church of England Voluntary Controlled Primary School, Skipton, Askwith Community Primary School, Otley, Crowlees Church of England Voluntary Controlled Junior and Infant School, Mirfield, were all named among the 200 schools with the highest average points score.

Long Lee Primary School, in Keighley, was also named in the top 100 nationally according to Key Stage One to Two value added measure.

Others fared less well. Pudsey Tyersal Primary School, in Bradford, Merlin Top Primary School, in Keighley, and Hightown School, in Liversedge, were all named in the bottom 200 schools for aggregate Level Four scores.

And Headlands Church of England Voluntary Controlled Junior, Infant and Nursery School, in Liversedge, was named in the bottom 100 according to the Key Stage One to Two value added measure