Education Standards: Stoke-on-Trent — House of Commons, 2020-06-18
Topic: Education
Jack Edgar Brereton (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank my hon. Friend for those comments. I absolutely agree with him. At Whitfield Valley and all the schools we see outstanding levels of progress; it is very high at Whitfield Valley. We need to support that and for that good practice to flow out and be shared across all schools. Going back to the Sir Stanley Matthews Academy, it was recently the only school that was nominated in my constituency for one of my unsung hero awards for the amazing work it has been doing to support the local community in Blurton during the coronavirus outbreak Ambition and a lack of opportunity have been key issues locally. Stoke-on-Trent very much relates to the Government’s levelling-up agenda. We desperately need to increase the ambition of our children and get them fully engaged in purposeful, high-quality education In the 2016 social mobility index, Stoke-on-Trent was ranked 298th out of 324 districts. That is mirrored across a number of indicators of multiple deprivation. Levels of pay and the number of people with higher level qualifications in Stoke-on-Trent are much lower than in other parts of the country. On average, you can be expected to be paid nearly £100 less a week in Stoke- on-Trent than nationally, which is totally unacceptable. Improving opportunities and instilling in pupils the confidence that they can achieve is vital. That goes hand-in-hand with improving educational outcomes. Careers advice is crucial to tackling that. Whether for more vocational or academic pathways, we need to keep engaging with universities to address the city’s low application rates for further education Levelling up is needed. I say to the Government: please do work with us on the levelling-up agenda. They will find no city more eager to engage or more relevant to this agenda. It is certainly welcome that the Careers & Enterprise Company is working to ensure that every secondary school and post-16 provider in Stoke-on-Trent will have access to an enterprise adviser, someone senior from business volunteering their time and a share of a £2 million investment, so that every secondary school pupil has access to at least four high-quality business encounters I am also very supportive of the education employers’ Primary Futures programme, which is designed to link up schools with role models from different career backgrounds to help pupils to think more from an early age about the ambitions they might have for the future. This is about broadening horizons for our children, the myriad opportunities out there, breaking down some of the perceived stereotypical boundaries, and the big ambitions that start at an early age. I encourage more people from different walks of life and in senior careers to volunteer their time for this fantastic initiative I am also delighted to say that recent efforts to increase applications to Oxford and Cambridge from A-level students in Stoke-on-Trent seem to be working, but there is much more to do. We must open up new educational options for children from deprived backgrounds across the city. The industry is full of exciting new prospects calling Stoke-on-Trent their home. Ensuring our children and young people have the best possible education is vital for the future prosperity of our city. Stoke-on-Trent is a key cluster of advanced manufacturing, with absolutely top-end, world-leading manufacturing. These industries can offer amazing careers for local people An undeniable problem in achieving that, however, particularly in secondary education, is the real lack of school places. In Staffordshire last year, not including Stoke-on-Trent, 92% of pupils moving from primary school to secondary school got into their first choice of school and 90% did in neighbouring Cheshire. However, in Stoke-on-Trent first choice places were secured by only 82%. In fact, dozens of local parents contacted me to say that not only did their children not secure their first preference, but they did not secure a place at any of their chosen three. That means more than twice as many children are missing out in Stoke-on-Trent than in the rest of Staffordshire. Every one of the city’s 14 secondary schools is full and 11 are over-subscribed. Some pupils have been left facing a commute across the entire city into Newcastle-under-Lyme and back again every morning and evening, with no bus services that would realistically ever get them to school on time. Such a situation does not create the best conditions for pupils to learn or for teachers to teach. We must change that by creating more high-quality school places that will push up standards and increase local opportunities. That is no less than our young people in Stoke-on-Trent deserve That is why I am delighted to support plans for a new free school, the Florence MacWilliams Academy run by the Educo Trust, on part of the former Longton High School site. If permission is granted, the school will alleviate the challenges around admissions policy at a time of a projected increase in pupil numbers in what is now a rather youthful city. Sadly, that demographic shift was not planned for, and in addition we now see further significant growth from new residential development, which has not been factored into secondary places.