Calls for more money to be invested in education in the North East, to put it on a par with London

There have been called for a North East 'education challenge', as schools lag behind London.

Councillors and stakeholders have called for a more level playing field between schools in the North East and their counterparts in London.

Figures from Northumberland County Council show that the capital was the only region in the country to achieve a positive score in “progress 8” – a key metric used by the government to measure the performance of secondary schools.

At a meeting of the county council’s family and children’s services overview and scrutiny committee, chairman Coun Wayne Daley called for a London-style “education challenge” for the North East.

He said: “When I was part of the combined authority we were offered an education challenge. I worked my backside off to do it but it never quite came off.

“As a committee, we should ask the leader of the council to continue the fight to develop a new education challenge that will come with additional monies to target some of the challenges we face.

“I think it is essential. When we see it works in London, there’s no reason it wouldn’t work here too.”

The London Challenge was a school improvement programme launched by the Labour Government in 2003. It was credited by Ofsted for a significant improvement in the capital’s state education system.

Former head teacher Alan Hodgson, who sits on the committee, added: “The Covid recovery in Northumberland appears to be slower than across England.

“The only positive score has been in London, and this is the point we have been making. Thanks to a billion pounds in investment, that’s what they get.

“If that’s a stick to hit us with, turn to them and say ‘give us the money and we can deliver a positive post-Covid as well.”

Introduced in 2015, the progress 8 benchmark groups pupils based on their scores in English and maths during the Key Stage 2 SATs and gives them an expected GCSE result, which is then compared to their actual results.

The Department for Education looks at a child’s GCSE results in eight subjects and compares them to the GCSE results of all children across the country who, five years earlier, performed similarly to Child A in Key Stage 2 reading and writing.

A score of zero means the school’s pupils progressed at a rate in line with the average rate of progression of others across the country, while above zero means they are doing better. Similarly, a score below zero means that pupils made less progress than their peers across the country who achieved similar SATs results.

In Northumberland, the average score is -0.23 – slightly above the North East average score of -0.27 but well below the England average of -0.03.

The committee agreed to call on the leader of the council, Coun Glen Sanderson, to work towards an education challenge under the new combined authority proposed for the North East.

In 2019, plans were unveiled to make the North of Tyne area just the third in the country to launch a government-funded education challenge, promising a “revolution” in the region’s education standards. The move was touted as “probably the single most important thing” that would be done under a £600m devolution deal, but progress has since stalled.