Not surprisingly Education Bradford has declared itself very pleased with the rate of improvement in the district's secondary schools as shown in the new league tables. Set against the new Government benchmark for the number of students gaining five A*-C grades (including English and maths), schools in Bradford improved by 2.3 per cent whereas nationally the average improvement was of 0.9 per cent.

We must first of all congratulate all the students and teachers who have worked so hard to achieve this step upward. This indication of general progress needs to be acknowledged, as does the success of those schools which have managed to be named among the best 25 per cent in the country for improvement.

However, at the same time we would be failing in our duty if we didn't point out that Bradford's position in the league table has fallen by 11 places to put the district in the bottom 12 out of 148 nationally. That means that although Bradford is improving better than the national average, another 11 education authorities did even better.

The bottom line is that in its seventh year Education Bradford is no nearer to fulfilling the expectations of Bradford people of being in a position at least midway up the national table.

It's absolutely right that we accentuate the positive and recognise the efforts of those striving so hard in our schools. But that in itself does not assuage the disappointment and it will do little to encourage the belief that Education Bradford is heading for the targets it was taken on to achieve.