School Funding (Worcestershire) Debate
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Karen Lumley
Main Page: Karen Lumley (Conservative - Redditch)Department Debates - View all Karen Lumley's debates with the Department for Education
School Funding (Worcestershire)
Karen Lumley Excerpts(12 years, 1 month ago)
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Karen Lumley (Redditch) (Con)
Thank you for allowing me to speak, Mr Weir. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for securing the debate. I must also declare an interest as a governor and trustee at Vaynor First School academy.
This year, although the number of students receiving good GCSEs fell across the nation, in Redditch we had nothing short of an exams boom. Despite funding challenges, three secondary schools in Redditch gained results that placed them in the top tier of the most improved schools across the country. Two schools, Arrow Vale and Trinity high, are recently converted academies, and that has had a hugely beneficial effect on the way that they run and operate, and ultimately on the success that they have had.
More importantly, from speaking to the head teachers it is clear that those schools now have greater ambition and, crucially, believe that they can compete with the best. However, while the structure, with the rolling out of academies, is finally in place for our county to achieve, funding is not. On funding, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire pointed out that the county is ranked nationally 147th out of 151. Worcestershire is more affected than other counties by this funding arrangement because we are at the bottom of the schools funding league.
The way out of that is a fairer national funding formula, which this Government have promised following 13 years of a Labour Government who completely failed to address the issue. It is absolutely vital for the children of Worcestershire that we receive a fair deal. The crucial point is that the recent exam results from a few schools in Redditch are on the back of unfair funding, so imagine what we could achieve if we had fairer funding. The truth is that in the age of an ever more competitive national and global work force we cannot continue unfairly to disadvantage the future of our children, whose only fault is that they were born in Worcestershire.