Bradford today produced its best-ever showing in secondary school league tables.
The district is beginning to climb away from its position near the bottom of the national league.
The latest table of GCSE results, released today, now place it 133rd out of 150 local education authorities - a rise of seven places on last year.
The number of teenagers reaching the national benchmark of five 'good' GCSE passes is now 37.3 per cent, the highest ever, although that is still well below the national average of 51pc.
Feversham College in Bradford, the country's first state-funded all-girls Muslim school, won a stunning accolade after just two years in business, coming top of a new table charting how far pupils progress.
And Grange Technology College in Bradford and Holy Family RC and Oakbank schools in Keighley, all made the top 200 most-improved in the country.
Dixons City Technology College was named the eighth best comprehensive in England at GCSE while Heckmondwike Grammar, a state grammar school, beat fee-paying rivals to post the highest GCSE results in West Yorkshire.
The tables published today have new "value-added" data, to show parents for the first time which schools make the best progress with pupils. Schools with high 'value-added' ratings may not be those with the highest academic results, but have made greater strides with their particular intake of children.
Teachers have lobbied for the new-style tables, which should reward excellence in schools that show strong progress with pupils from more deprived backgrounds. They should also expose schools that traditionally have high results, but may be 'coasting'.
Last year, schools bosses promised the tables were "the last year of bad news" for Bradford.
And their views were proved right as this year the district leapt up the table by seven places. When GCSE results in 2002 are compared with 1999, the city was the 34th fastest improving at GCSE, putting it in the top 20 per cent of LEAs.
Primary league tables published last term showed the Bradford district is the fastest-improving in the country at Key Stage 2.
Councillor David Ward, executive member for education, said: "I was holding my breath when I made those comments last year, they were an act of faith in all I knew was taking place. We have had additional funding to schools, and consultant heads going in to schools and providing support, plus the change to a two tier system.
"I was worried the trauma of change would negate all we were doing, but it's proved not to be the case. This shows that if you get the right people, which we have now both in schools and supporting them, and they are doing the right things, you are bound to see improvement."
Paying tribute to teachers, he added: "It has been hell at times for them, and some schools are still hard-hat zones."
Mark Pattison, managing director of Education Bradford, said: "I am pleased schools have performed so well that Bradford has, once again, risen up the league tables.
"This is a significant achievement, but I want to stress that there is still a long way to go to bring about the transformation of education in schools in Bradford."
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article