Cash boost for Stockport’s most disadvantaged school pupils

14 November 2007

Stockport will receive £1.3 million from the Government to spend on schools in deprived areas in the latest funding settlement announced this week.

The extra cash to benefit pupils from such areas as Brinnington, Shaw Heath, Cheadle Heath and Adswood and Bridgehall comes after a campaign by Ann Coffey MP for a change in the funding formula to target small areas of deprivation within affluent boroughs.

In the past pupils in deprived areas of Stockport have missed out on additional funds because overall Stockport is classed as one of the more affluent local authorities.

Within Greater Manchester, only Stockport and Trafford have received this additional funding as part of the first ever three year school funding settlement for every authority for 2008 to 11.

Nationally the Government has allocated an additional £40 million a year funding to target money at disadvantaged pupils in pockets of deprivation in more affluent areas.

Ms Coffey said: “The settlement means we can continue to raise the educational achievement of all young people and narrow the gap in educational achievement between disadvantaged children and their peers. Our young people and schools deserve no less.”

In October Ms Coffey urged the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families to revise the criteria for granting Building Schools for the Future capital funding to local education authorities to ensure adequate funding for schools which have an intake of students from deprived areas but which are in situated in relatively prosperous local authority areas.

The latest announcement follows a previous announcement last month that schools in Stockport will receive almost £53 million of new investment in state of the art classrooms, arts, sports and ICT facilities over the next three years.

Stockport’s share of the £21.9 billion for capital investment in schools announced in the Comprehensive Spending Review means that Stockport will receive the second biggest real terms percentage increase of all Greater Manchester’s boroughs.