By Gavin Mackintosh-
The British government will be empowering 12 social mobility opportunity areas is to be “twinned” with places facing similar challenges in an effort to help disadvantaged pupils recover from the Covid-19 pandemic, it has been announced.
Michelle Donelan, the minister in charge of the project, announced today that £1 million of the project’s £18 million in funding for 2020-21 will be ring fenced to support the twinning activity.
The opportunity areas include West Somerset, Norwich, Blackpool, North Yorkshire Coast, Derby, Oldham, Bradford, Doncaster, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire, Hastings, Ipswich and Stoke-on-Trent. It is not yet known which areas they will twin with.
Priorities for the fourth year include early speech and language development and teacher recruitment and retention. The overall aim is to help pupils “catch up on lost learning time” during partial school closures.
Many of the opportunities for catch-up plans are already in place, including funding for holiday clubs, online English and maths tutoring, career and work opportunities, and support for children risk of exclusion. Exact details of the quality and duration of tuition has not been disclosed, but is worth examination.
The Uk has raised the standard of education from primary to secondary school in the past two years, making the consequences of pupils missing out on over 3 months of schooling one that requires time and professional expertise.
The Department Of Education
Donelan said: “Around the country, the response to the pandemic has been heroic, and each of the 12 opportunity areas has co-ordinated its approach to help those who need it most respond to immediate challenges.
“Now as we chart a course to recovery, we will build on the programme’s success so far to benefit young people in new areas and level up their life chances.
“We know that we can tackle these barriers more effectively when we come together across our different policy areas and by harnessing the expertise and experience of these dedicated professionals.”
The government will also be committing plenty of cash to each opportunity area in the fourth year of the project, with £18m in total going to the funding.