Bradford will become a magnet for teachers who want to make a difference, according to London's newly appointed 'schools tsar'

Professor Tim Brighouse, pictured with Maureen Burns, director of the Innovation Unit, gave a highly upbeat assessment of the district's chances of turning around its traditionally low classroom standards during a motivational talk to about 200 Bradford head teachers.

The former boss of Birmingham's education authority - once denounced as "a nutter" by a former Tory schools minister but now one of Britain's leading gurus - urged the head teachers to adopt a 'collegiate' spirit and work together to break the link between poverty and low educational achievement.

And he paid tribute to teachers who chose to work in the hardest inner city schools. He began his own career teaching history at a grammar school in Buxton, Derbyshire.

"If you are an urban teacher you need all the skills and qualities in teaching, but you need them to a far greater degree than I needed when I started teaching in Derbyshire," he said.

"Children in places like Bradford bring far more baggage to the school gate than they do in Derbyshire."

He was speaking on the day Bradford was revealed as the place in the country with the biggest proportion of "failing" schools.

The two-day conference, hosted by Education Bradford, the district's privatised education service, was on the theme of School Improvement.

After his talk Prof Brighouse, who has spent his entire career in the public sector, gave the Telegraph & Argus a hearty endorsement of the efforts being made by Education Bradford to effect a turnaround.

Prof Brighouse said: "The leaders (of Education Bradford) are all people who have come from the public sector - they have exactly the same value system. They are driven by the determination to change children's life chances.

"As far as I can see, their bottom line is making a difference, rather than profit. As long as this remains the bottom line, everybody will respond to it. That is what people are attracted to teaching for." The highly-respected educationalist believes Bradford will soon become the place to be for idealistic young teachers.

"There seems to be an absolute collective resolution here to do something to make a dent in the correlation between social disadvantage and the chance of educational success or failure," he said.

"They are changing the tide from 'what more can you expect?' to 'the sky's the limit'.

"Bradford will get the reputation for being the urban place that makes a difference," he said.

"It will get that reputation and it will become a comparative magnet - that certainly happened in Birmingham."