Schools Summit with 20 local headteachers

This week I hosted a Schools Summit, bringing 20 local headteachers around the table at East Sussex College in Hastings with officials from the Department for Education and East Sussex County Council to think about how we can better work together to improve outcomes for children in Hastings, Rye and the villages.

When I was 17, studying for my A-Levels at a local East Sussex comprehensive, I experienced first-hand how our education system can fail students.  Midway through my A Levels, the Chemistry teacher was made redundant after cuts to the school budget, and I was left to teach myself the rest of the course. Thankfully I managed to pass. But too many pupils in Hastings, Rye and the villages are not so lucky.

It is a scandal that 63% of young people in Hastings and Rye leave school without the basic GCSE qualifications in Maths and English. Despite the incredible dedication of our local teachers and school staff, young people in our area are falling behind. The Sutton Trust recently found that Hastings, Rye and the villages is in the bottom ten nationally for social mobility. We also have one of the highest levels of school absence. An increasing number of children, about 800 in Hastings and Rother, are being home educated because parents feel that schools are not providing. Whilst home education can be a positive option for some children whose parents do provide a good quality education, home education also raises serious safeguarding concerns for others. Earlier this year I organised a public meeting on schools and over 100 local parents and carers turned up on a Friday evening, keen to have their voices heard.  

Almost all our schools are now run by academy trusts, and whatever you think of the academy system, it has too often left schools working in isolation and in a fragmented system.

Whereas schools in cities have been encouraged to learn from each other, our area has lacked a forum for educational leaders to work together on shared challenges from attendance to special educational needs provision. That is why this week I hosted a Schools Summit, bringing 20 local headteachers around the table at East Sussex College in Hastings with officials from the Department for Education and East Sussex County Council to think about how we can better work together to improve outcomes for children in Hastings, Rye and the villages. We were also joined by the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sussex Prof Sasha Roseneil, and educational charities like the Sutton Trust, Speakers for Schools and the Education Futures Trust who all share our ambition and want to see how they can help.

I am grateful to everyone who took part, and there are several areas of work that we will be taking forward as a result of the discussions. As our Member of Parliament, I will keep standing up for young people in our area to get the best state education possible.

Our educational inequalities are nothing short of a national scandal, but often masked by being part of the East Sussex area, which takes in a much larger geography. Improving education in our coastal towns is key to breaking down the barriers to opportunity for every child, and I use every chance I get to highlight this in Parliament and with Ministers, and push for a targeted approach.

I also want our children to have the opportunity to expand their minds outside the classroom. This week, I’ve started a campaign to make sure every child in our area gets the chance to see the Bayeux Tapestry when it returns to the UK. Although ‘1066 Country’ has often been at the centre of historical events, it has not always felt the benefits of them. The campaign has already been covered by The Guardian and The Times, and I’ll keep pushing to make sure our area reaps the benefits of this national, once in a generation, moment.  

Originally published in Rye News