Justine Greening announces £60 million for social mobility

[noblegiraffe]

£60 million will go to 6 'opportunity areas' to support schools and create links with employers.

The first areas will be Blackpool, Derby, Norwich, Oldham, Scarborough and West Somerset.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-37554334

I wonder where this £60 million is coming from, along with the £50 million for grammars while West Sussex is saying they are considering a 4 day school week due to budget cuts...

noblegiraffe Tue 04-Oct-16 17:18:48 I wonder where this £60 million is coming from, along with the £50 million for grammars

+1

How is it that existing schools are struggling financially (including existing Grammar schools) yet substantial amounts of money can be found for these "wonderful new schools and ventures".

I'm intrigued by the idea of £60 million for social mobility while also funding £50 million for grammars.

Is she just funding some sort of very large randomised controlled trial?

Don't forget we'll be saving £350m a day once we leave the EU

Yes thank god we leave the f@cking EU!

In the great run of the mill scheme of things, whilst £60M seems a lot of money it is apparently over 3 years, so for each of the areas it is £10M over 3 years. To put in perspective that is the annual budget of a secondary school with something like 1600 pupils.
For me my question would be whether having identified that these areas need help - which they do - why should we give them so more funding when over a good many years these boroughs have proved to not be up to solving their own problems. Other areas who have really done a good job of improving education in their areas must be wondering whether in reality it is easier to just fail, as they will then get more funding to spend.

£60 million is peanuts. So is the supposed £50 million for grammars.

If the government is serious about social mobility for the disadvantaged they need to be investing far more into schemes like Sure Start which address disadvantage while children are small. Ironically these are schemes which have been cut in recent years.

The strongest indicator of academic success at 11, 16 or 18 is achievement at 3.

It was £350M per week, not per day (although that figure is, of course, wrong).

As EleanorRigby says, in the context of government spending £60 million is peanuts. It represents around 0.15% of the education budget.

I find West Sussex's suggestion that they will move to a 4-day week odd. Their funding per pupil is a long way from being the lowest in England but the LAs with lower funding do not, on the whole, appear to feel the need for such drastic moves. In any case West Sussex cannot adopt a 4-day week unless they intend to reduce school holidays. Schools must, by law, be open for at least 380 half days per school year (Inset days count towards the total). On a 4-day week that means schools would have to be open for 47.5 weeks per year.

I don't see how it would save much money either. How can all teachers become part time? Ditto the headteachers. Staffing costs are a huge part of any budget so presumably they think they will save on transport and meals. Not worth the effort.