Head teachers across Bradford have stunned education chiefs with a massive vote of no confidence in the schools' review.

The education authority has been taken aback by the ferocity of the attack by heads against the ongoing review which proposes to close up to 75 of the district's 250 schools.

The vote of no confidence taken by the National Association of Head teachers, which has about 200 members in Bradford, coincides with the distribution of more than 80,000 questionnaires on the review to parents.

Alan Davy, Bradford's NAHT secretary, said: "We are discussing the review with the LEA and we are hoping to maintain that dialogue throughout the review process."

Heads claim the interim report of the review lacks substance and the evidence within it is too flimsy to back any of the three options it contains for changing the way schools are run in Bradford.

The first option is to keep the current structure of first, middle and upper schools but drastically cut them in numbers.

The second proposition is to introduce a two-tier system of primary and secondary schools, which would also mean fewer schools. The third possibility is to have a mixture of both systems but this idea has been largely disregarded already.

Bradford education committee chairman Councillor Jim Flood said: "We are looking carefully at what the NAHT are saying and if we feel the review needs amending or refining we will be prepared to do that."

Governors have also criticised the report. John Andrew, the chairman of Bradford South Governors' Forum, said: "Many of the conclusions in the interim report are not supported by the evidence and, frequently, the evidence is inappropriate or clearly wrong."

The questionnaires now going out will ask parents and teachers to pick one of the options for change. These have to be returned by February 20 and will be instrumental in the council's final decision at the end of March.

Councillor Dale Smith, Tory opposition spokesman for education, said: "I am becoming increasingly sceptical that Labour's review is not being driven by anything other than the desire to cut costs and tackle the LEA's own multi-million-pound budget deficit."

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