Education and Skills: Funding, Apprentices and Grammars

The Government’s consultation on proposals for a new funding formula closes this Wednesday. This is both very important and very complicated – and whatever final proposal emerges it will be impossible to please everyone.

The recent announcement by the High School for Girls for new admissions criteria from 2018 is much more important than it sounds.

Gloucester MP Richard Graham has written to local secondary schools to encourage their sixth form pupils’ participation in the ‘Lessons from Auschwitz’ project run by the Holocaust Educational Trust.

I have submitted a response to the Department for Education’s consultation ‘Schools that Work for Everyone’ outlining my views on what schools should look like. Here is what I wrote:

In National Apprentice Week City MP Richard Graham thanked Gloucester employers in Parliament for creating 6,640 apprenticeships since 2010 – placing Gloucester 61st out of all 533 English constituencies.

This week I want to share some stats with you that highlight the Return of the Apprentice in our city and county. Since 2010, 6,200 new apprentices have started in the city – more than double the figure for the previous five years – and over 23,000 in the county.

Gloucester MP Richard Graham visited Rosebank Surgery on Stroud Road to congratulate their first apprentice Jodie Cook on winning the McDonald’s Award for Intermediate Apprentice of the Year for the South West, Thames Valley and Solent.