Many children and young people will have been sitting exams this week, be they the SATs taken by primary school pupils or the GCSEs at the other end of school life.

These tests should be about youngsters doing the very best they can in preparation for high school and, in the case of the GCSEs, setting themselves up for the next stage of life, be that further education or entering into the world of work.

All too often though, these exams become merely benchmarks for schools and education authorities to be ranked against each other in league tables. The past few years has seen improvement in Bradford’s overall performance; however greater improvements in other areas means that Bradford does not move up the league tables as fast and by as many places as people would like to see.

The way to improve both prospects for young people and see an improvement in Bradford’s placings is to narrow the gap between the high-flying pupils and low-achievers in the same schools.

This, according to Schools Minister David Laws, is not being done satisfactorily in Bradford. It is feared that children from disadvantaged backgrounds are falling far behind those from more affluent homes.

The Government says it has tried to tackle this with the creation of the “Pupil Premium” which gives money to schools to improve achievement among pupils, but Mr Laws has expressed concerns that this money is not being spent wisely.

If that’s the case, a root and branch review of how the pupil premium is spent and whether it is indeed being used to tackle under-achievement, especially among disadvantaged children, is urgently required.