Education is one of the most important weapons in our battle against child poverty and our extra investment and school reforms are already beginning to make a real difference to millions of young people.
An early start is crucial. Children learn so much at home with their parents. That’s where the Sure Start initiative comes in. Working with 300,000 children in over 400 disadvantaged communities, it helps parents with health problems, childcare and early learning.
Learning to speak, to mix with other people and to recognise letters and numbers are taken for granted in many homes. Through such things as toy libraries and book schemes, Sure Start aims to make sure that all children have the opportunity for this kind of flying start before they go to school.
Parents and teachers have long recognised the importance of nursery education to poorer children. We’ve rapidly expanded the free places available, so that by this September every three and four year-old will have access to one. That opportunity is backed by a foundation curriculum outlining the progress children should make up to the age of six.
The literacy and numeracy strategies in primary schools have not only raised overall standards; they have benefited the least well off most, particularly in education action zones. Poorer youngsters were most likely to start secondary school unable to read or do basic mathematics.
Equally, as we focus on secondary reform this term, our overriding goal is to develop the talents of each individual child to the full. Economic prudence has provided us with the resources to modernise schools – with over £8 billion of new buildings and repairs, and major investment in information and communications technology.
But we are seeing better results too. While overall GCSE standards have improved since 1997, the biggest boost has been among black children and those with unskilled and semi-skilled manual parents, who have traditionally under-achieved.
We are giving schools greater freedom, except where they fail their children. Having successfully turned around 750 failing schools last term, we are taking decisive steps this term to improve standards in schools with poor GCSE results through more intensive support. Weak or failing schools are too often in our poorest areas. If they don’t improve, their pupils suffer further disadvantage.
Since 1997, we’ve also reduced by 12,000 the number of pupils leaving school with no GCSE passes. A new green paper on fourteen to nineteen education will back the introduction of vocational GCSEs and new apprenticeships with greater opportunities for young people to pursue work-related courses, which should encourage many more otherwise disaffected teenagers to continue learning and gain skills and qualifications, rather than settle for a dead-end job at sixteen.
Excellence in Cities covers the inner cities and many deprived parts of large towns in England. Through a combination of mentors, extra help with discipline and support for brighter children of all backgrounds, it is improving results for urban pupils. It is also helping to ensure that disadvantaged pupils benefit most from the expansion of the specialist school programme and the building of new city academies.
And by expanding opportunities for sports, music, arts and homework clubs, more and more children at state schools are receiving the extra-curricular back up which those in private schools have long taken for granted.
A child from a professional family is still five times more likely than the child of unskilled parents to go to university. So we are working with leading universities to encourage bright pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to lift their horizons. New bursaries are helping cover costs as part of a £190 million, three year programme. As standards rise, we want those who make the grade to have the opportunities they deserve, with half of all young people progressing to higher education by age thirty.
Every child, whatever their circumstances, deserves the chance to make the most of themselves. As a government, we are providing better opportunities for poorer children to fulfil their potential than has been possible for decades. The early signs have been encouraging, and through a practical combination of investment and reform, I know we can make even greater strides this term.