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New £60m ‘opportunity areas’ introduced by Education Secretary

Justine_Greening_June_2015 Secretary of State for Education Justine Greening announced the creation of new ‘opportunity areas’ across the country which will receive £60m towards school improvement, teacher support and school-business collaboration.

The ‘opportunity areas’ are social mobility cold spots identified by the Social Mobility Index, published by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission.

The focus will initially be on Blackpool, Derby, Norwhich, Oldham, Scarborough and West Somerset, with four more areas to be announced in the coming months.

While three North East Local Authority areas have been identified by the report as being social mobility “cold spots”, they are ranked in the bottom 20%.

The White Paper introduced by former Education Secretary Nicky Morgan also identified “cold-spots” – parts of the country where schools were facing particular challenges – and proposed Achieving Excellence Areas. This listed Northumberland and Middlesbrough as priority areas.

A Department for Education spokesperson said: “The principle behind AEAs was targeting the department’s schools resources where they are most needed. We are taking this principle even further.

“We want to go beyond schools and make sure all our programmes, from early years to access to employment, help break the link between a person’s background and how well they do as an adult. We will prioritise our programmes on areas of greatest need across the country.

“We know Opportunity Areas face the most entrenched challenges, and they will be at the forefront of our place based approach, but there are other areas that will have specific needs that we will also prioritise.

“With the new broader remit of the Department – bringing in further, higher and adult education – and a focus on social mobility, we can be more ambitious in what we’re trying to achieve – hence Opportunity Areas, which build on the Achieving Excellence Areas.”

More information on the new funding allocated to “opportunity areas” can be found on the DfE website.

The plans were announced during Justine Greening’s speech at the Conservative Party Conference on Tuesday afternoon. The SoS also dedicated part of her speech to the issue of new grammar schools and emphasised the fact that it will be up to local areas to decide whether they want grammar schools or not, but that the option will be available to them.

Prime Minister Theresa May announced during her Leader’s speech at the Conference that her Government will lift the ban on opening new grammar schools.

She told delegates in Birmingham, “Where there is demand from parents, where they will definitely take pupils from all backgrounds, where they will play a part in improving the quality of all schools in their area – we will lift the ban on establishing new grammar schools”.

The move is controversial as the Government only recently published the Green Paper “Schools That Work For Everyone”, launching a consultation into expanding selection in state schools. May’s announcement would appear to pre-empt the results of this consultation, which does not close until mid-December.

 

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