Education bosses are celebrating record-breaking results with the performance of Bradford's 11-year-olds in the national curriculum tests.

The district's pupils have improved their performance for the fourth year in a row in Key Stage two tests.

Improvements have been recorded in the number of 11-year-olds reaching the expected standards in English, maths and science.

And the rate of improvement in Bradford beats the national average in all three subject areas.

The performance of seven-year-old pupils has fallen slightly in reading, and maths but the Department for Education and Skills said comparisons with previous years are impossible because of changes to the way key stage one tests are carried out.

The key stage two results have been hailed as great news for Bradford by education bosses.

Phil Green, Bradford Council's Director of Education, said: "We welcome these results which at key stage two are the best ever achieved in Bradford, and continue the trend of year-on-year improvements.

"We also know how hard staff in schools have worked to enable the children to achieve at these levels and we want to thank them for their hard work and commitment."

The Council's executive member for education, Councillor Dale Smith, said: "We are making progress, but need to ensure that it is both sustained and accelerated."

However despite being the district's best-ever Sats results, the performance of 11-year-olds may still fail to hit the lowered targets which were set for the private company which runs Bradford's education services.

Education Bradford, which is operated by Serco, had its targets lowered this year by Bradford Council in a controversial move to make its goals more "realistic".

Instead of having to get the district's school test results up to the national average the company now has to get Bradford into the top quarter of a list of 12 education authorities from similar areas.

For each target point Education Bradford achieves it receives a bonus of £17,500.

And the Council has set the company the target of getting into the top quarter of all its performance areas by 2010.

Based on the performance of the other 12 authorities in 2004, Education Bradford could miss out on £367,000 in bonus payments for failing to hit targets for key stages one and two.

Using the target figure for 2004, yesterday's results would mean the company missed eight of its targets.

These include the number of seven-year-olds achieving the expected levels in reading and maths and the number of 11-year-olds achieving the expected levels in English, science and maths.

Phil Green, Bradford Council's Director of Education, said: "The incentive payment system is subject to a rigorous check of local and national data and it is far too early to comment on any incentive payments for 2005/6.

"The final calculation of the payments will not be made until after the end of the 2005/6 financial year."