A partnership that helped improve schools in deprived areas of London could be the inspiration to raising education standards in Bradford.

Bradford Council is one of 15 education authorities in Yorkshire that are looking to team up to improve their results by creating closer links between successful and struggling schools and bringing in education experts to identify ways to improve.

If successful, the partnership could be particularly beneficial for Bradford, which has languished close to the bottom of education performance tables for years.

Despite improvements in many sectors, Bradford’s primary schools this year recorded the third-worst key stage two SATs results in England, while GCSE and A-level results remain in the lowest 20 per cent nationally.

Education secretary Michael Gove recently described teaching standards in the city as “appalling.”

The partnership is inspired by the London Challenge. Started under the Labour government in 2003, it saw experts in education tasked with identifying and supporting the schools in most need of improvements. Similar to Bradford, many of these schools had high levels of pupils who spoke English as an additional language.

London Challenge has been credited with steadily improving some of the capital’s worst-performing schools, and after discussions between Yorksh-ire’s various education leaders a similar partnership is expected to start early next year.

It would see councils work with academies, businesses and higher education establishments.

Coun Ralph Berry, head of children’s services at Bradford Council, welcomes the idea. He said: “We very much want to be part of this. When it happened in London, standards were really lifted. We’ve been trying to work something similar for a while. We’ll do anything we can to improve education standards in Bradford, especially getting involved with something like this that has proven to work effectively in the past.”

Coun Berry feels the partnership will have wide support from teachers and governors, although the way it is funded still needs to be decided.

He added: “We have had some differences with the Government, but this will be about working together and do whatever we can to get this moving.”

Coun Roger L’Amie, Conservative spokesman for education on the Council, said: “We don’t want to reinvent the wheel, but it sounds to be a good idea. Any collaborative work that leads to better education practices must be to the advantage of youngsters in Bradford and the district.”

Ian Murch, local spokesman for the NUT, said: “I think in many ways it could be a good thing. There is no dispute London Challenge has been good in terms of sharing expertise, staff and knowledge between schools.”

The project would be run by Leeds City Councillor Judith Blake.