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At the Conservative Party Conference earlier this week, Education secretary Justine Greening announced six areas across England as the most challenged in terms of social mobility.

 

Blackpool, Derby, Norwich, Oldham, Scarborough and West Somerset will consequently be the first ‘opportunity areas’ to receive extra government support as part of a £60 million scheme. A further four areas will be announced at a later date, bringing the total number to 10.

 

“Getting real change could take a generation, and it’s going to need a different strategy to what we’ve done before, so today I’m announcing the first six Opportunity Areas where we’ll trial a new approach,” Justine said.

 

The scheme plans to ensure children have access to high quality early years care, build teaching and leadership capacity in schools, increase access to university, strengthen technical pathways for young people and work with employers to improve access to jobs and opportunities.

 

Justine said that she hopes the scheme will give children “the best start in life, no matter what their background”.

 

Megan Jarvie, head of policy and public affairs at The Family and Childcare Trust, said that the early years is vital in setting children up for school and thus improving social mobility, and has called for the funding to be used to support the development of the graduate early years workforce.

 

“Evidence shows that early years graduates have a significant impact on the quality of early years education and that only high quality early education helps to improve children’s outcomes,” Megan said.

 

“However, we know that England’s early years workforce has a low proportion of graduates compared to other developed nations – some 43% of three- and four-year-olds in private and non-profit day nurseries and 60% in pre-schools did not have a graduate working with them in 2015.”