Minister visits Hartlepool schools during fact-finding mission for £1.4m investment

A government minister visited schools in Hartlepool as part of plans for a £1.4m boost to the town to tackle inequalities in education.

Education minister Baroness Diana Barran met with leaders in the town as well as visiting three schools to find out about plans for the funding. Last year Hartlepool was named as one of 24 Priority Education Investment Areas which would get the extra cash and support to bump up the results in areas with high levels of deprivation.

Department for Education figures published in November show just 25.3% of disadvantaged children in Hartlepool gained strong pass grades in GCSE English and maths compared to 55.8% for all other children. In some of the town’s schools a staggering 70% of pupils qualify for free school meals.

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Baroness Barran said: “Hartlepool is an area is deprivation relative to many others in the country. Although Hartlepool does pretty well compared to other areas at primary school the results at secondary are much less good than the national average and we really believe that children in Hartlepool should have exactly the same opportunities as anywhere else in the country.”

She said with the extra funding there would be a focus on reading and comprehension, as well as speech and language. The Baroness added that a lot of support would be going into helping youngsters make the transition from primary to secondary education.

During her visit to Hartlepool the minister visited three schools, including St Hild’s CofE School and West View Primary School, which was recently judged to be good in all areas by Ofsted.

As part of the visit, Baroness Barran was given a tour of West View Primary by headteacher Lauren Furness and Ad Astra Academy Trust CEO Andy Brown.

Ms Furness said: “It was great to be given the opportunity to talk first-hand to a government minister about the key aspects of our school and what we are doing to help our children get off to the best start in life. The Minister was really interested to hear about the steps we have taken to improve reading and phonics.

“She was also interested in our learning environment which is inspired by The Curiosity Approach.”

Mr Brown added: “West View Primary School has a long, proud record of positive pupil progress, against a backdrop of some significant challenges. The doors are always open at all of our schools to share good practice and I think the minister was suitably impressed with everything which is being achieved at West View.”

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