From the Council:

Stockport Council is encouraging parents/carers to apply for school places online. The online process for admissions is now open for nursery, primary and secondary schools for September 2011. Parents can apply online at www.stockport.gov.uk/schooladmissions

It’s quick and simple and available 24 hours a day 7 days a week up until the following closing dates:

· The closing date for secondary school places starting in September 2011 for children born between 1st September 1999 – 31st August 2000 is 31st October.

· The closing date for primary school places starting in September 2011 for children born between 1st September 2006 – 31st August 2007 is 15th January 2011.

· The closing date for nursery schools and classes starting in September 2011 for children born between 1st September 2007 – 31st August 2008 is 31st March 2011.

From the Council:

Stockport Music Service showcased a very successful week of five summer concerts at the prestigious Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. All the pupils involved had a great experience on their respective nights.

The Stockport Council service celebrated the achievements of its young musicians, aged between five and 21 years and of all abilities, representing 9 Stockport primary schools, one special school, and a wide variety of musical groups and genres of music.

There were also adult singers, including teachers, comprising the Sing Up Choir. Anybody wishing to join any of the Music Centre groups in September or wanting more information should contact Stockport Music Service on 0161 483 7636 or email craig.eastwood@stockport.gov.uk.

(I was there on the Friday, watching my son and his friends in the brass Five Notes Band and Prep Band).

From the Council:

Children at Orrishmere Primary School in Cheadle Hulme won first prize in the Stockport Young Entrepreneurs competition for the second year running. The children ran a company called ‘The Money Tree’ which gave out micro loans of £2 and challenged pupils to make as much money as they could. Children gave half of their profits and the £2 loan back to the school. The profits amounted to over £1,000! They received their trophy from Ruth Badger runner-up in the BBC TV series The Apprentice. Ms Badger is treating the winners to a business lunch at one of Manchester’s top restaurants. Runners up were Queens Road Primary School’s ‘Clock Clickerz’ who worked with their business mentor Phil Millar from Creative Apparel in Cheadle to design and produce personalised clocks.The best trade stand at the final, voted for by other children at the event, was Cheadle Heath Primary School’s ‘Pom Pom Pets’ who produced pom pom animals, complete with adoption certificates.

Over 250 children, some as young as seven, from 15 schools, were given £500 through extended schools funding to set-up and run a small business. They did their own market research and designed, produced, advertised and sold a product. Each child had a role within the ‘company’ such as finance director or marketing manager. Every school was supported by a business mentor - a local businessperson - who generously gave their time and expertise to help the pupils.

The finale, in front of over 600 people at Stockport Town Hall, was in the style of the Dragon’s Den. The children ran trade stands displaying their products with the school’s business links acting as ‘Dragons’ interviewing and judging them on criteria such as originality of design.

Over recent months, a group of councillors and council officers have been working with young people, investigating cyber-bullying in schools to understand better what it is, how widespread it is and how we can better tackle it in Stockport.

The result is a report you can read in the Children and Young People’s agenda for July 2010.

There’s far more than I can put here, but cyber-bullying is a serious issue.  It can happen not just through PCs, but with young people accessing online services via mobile phones, Wiis and anything else with an internet connection.

Sometimes the young people don’t appreciate the effect their actions are having on the victims, and frequently parents don’t know what’s going on and don’t know how to deal with it when they do.

The report finished with several recommendations for the Council, schools and school governors.

The next stage is for this report to go to the Executive - the Council’s ruling body.  If agreed, it will start being put into practice.

Stockport Council’s Executive recently decided to consult over the proposed closure of Offerton High School. Last night that decision was reviewed by the Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee, of which I’m a member.

The decision to go to consultation was supported by 14 of the 15 members present and opposed by none (Cllr Rowles abstained).

What I’ll do here is put down my personal thoughts as a committee member. I don’t know Offerton School well - the only connection I have is my son attending the music service there every week, so if you’d like to comment from a different perspective, do go ahead.

It was clear to the committee that something must be done about the excess secondary places in East and South Stockport, and the strategy is to tackle the East first, then look at the South afterwards.

The East schools (Stockport School, Offerton, Hazel Grove, Marple Hall and Werneth) will have over 2,000 spare places by 2014/15 if nothing is done. That needs to come down to around 1,000.

Why? Money follows the pupils, so a school with fewer pupils has less money. But many of the costs are fixed: there’s little you can save on buildings maintenance and utilities, for example. As the money drops, it’s staff and equipment that bear the brunt. That means larger class sizes and a poorer education for the children.

The most obvious way of correcting the excess of places is to close a school. Of those above, Offerton is considered the most appropriate to close:

• Offerton has the largest number of surplus places (32%), and this is forecast to increase further.
• Last November, Offerton was inspected by Ofsted, judged to be Unsatisfactory and given formal Notice to Improve. On a return visit in May 2010 inspectors judged that, while some progress has been made, it’s inadequate
• Offerton’s buildings are in poor condition and it’s forecast to run up a deficit of over £2 million by 2011/12
• Over the last few years, only just over half the parents in Offerton’s catchment area have chosen to send their children to the school.

If the Council fails to do something (and that might be something other than closing the school) we’d be letting down our children. More and more of the money to educate them would be going on building maintenance, utility bills and the like, and less on their teaching.

The consultation that will now go ahead cannot, in my view, be simply to ask whether or not the school should close. Carrying on as we are now is not an option. Continuing to have a failing school with over 30% of the places unfilled and a debt which will soon be in the millions is not an option.

But the Council must be open to alternatives. Any alternative must deal with those three issues: the standards, the places and the finances. If, through the consultation, a viable alternative can be found that allows the school to stay open, to flourish and protects children across the borough, we’ll be the first to cheer.

Offerton’s Chair of Governors, Paul Beatty, has outlines an alternative plan which will come into the consultation. It still needs fleshing out with those details.

At yesterday’s meeting we also looked at the transition plans, should the school close. I can’t remember all the details, so I’m not going to write things down here and risk making a mistake.

What I can say is that the education of the children currently at the school is the top priority. Fuller details of how the transition to closure would work will be included in the consultation booklet currently being prepared.

Back in January I reported on a meeting I’d had with Mrs Yule, Headmistress at Lady Barn House School in Cheadle.

We were looking at the traffic problems caused by school traffic coming onto Schools Hill to collect and drop off kids.

At the time, the most realistic option to explore seemed to be a “walking bus” - where the pupils walk in a line to and from a drop-off/collection point (Shiers Drive being the most promising).

Today I’ve received a letter from Mrs Yule saying that the option has been examined but the school feels it’s neither safe nor practical given the location of the school and the number of children .

Whilst I’m disappointed, I of course appreciate that the safety of the children must be of prime concern.

Pam and I will continue looking for opportunities to improve the traffic and parking situations around the whole of our area, including our schools.

Staff and pupils at Moat House, Stockport’s Pupil Referral Unit for school-age mums, are delighted with their recent Ofsted inspection, which for the third time found the unit to be “outstanding”. The attached nursery was also judged to be “outstanding” in the comprehensive inspection.

The Ofsted inspector, who spent two days at the unit, commented that ‘Moat House provides an outstanding level of education and care for its students…..students make excellent progress in all subjects’. For more information click here.

Somehow we’ve managed to just stay on the right side of the weather again.  At the Gatley Fun Day last Sunday the rain and wind held off enough for everyone to have a great time and, despite a few moments of drizzle, it managed it again this evening at Gatley Primary for the Family Fun Picnic.

You know the sort of thing: BBQ, smoothies, face painting, fire engine, games, raffle… Here are a couple of photos.

From the Council:

A turf cutting ceremony was held recently to mark the start of the construction of a new state-of-the-art education facility in Reddish. Work has now begun for Reddish North Primary School, Children’s Centre and Fir Tree Nursery School which will transform primary and early years education in the area.

The high quality new school will accommodate pupils from the current North Reddish Infants and Junior Schools and Fir Tree Primary Schools and will be fit for the 21st century. The new school will have places for over 500 children and is due to open in September 2011. It will include the following:-

· high quality teaching classrooms

· specialist areas for food, science and ICT

· special needs learning rooms

· childcare and multipurpose rooms

· wide range of hard and soft play facilities

· staff and visitor parking

· sports facilities available for community use

From the Council:

Stockport Council, on behalf of the Stockport Partnership, has commissioned a research and engagement project, to review employment and skills issues, and improve awareness of support services in the Town Centre residential area.

The Neighbourhood Renewal Team will be carrying out this work. They have extensive knowledge and experience of worklessness and a proven track record in engaging with local communities and stakeholders.

The work will include consultation with local residents and employers in these areas. It is anticipated this piece of work will provide a blue print for future consultation and engagement on economic drivers in other Priority 1 areas of the borough.

For further information please click here (pdf) or contact Liz Madge on 0161 476 1262 or elizabeth.madge@stockport.gov.uk.

From the Council:

Stockport Council is to consider proposals to improve the provision of secondary school education across the borough. The proposals will affect schools in the east of Stockport, and will be considered by the Executive on 14th June. The Executive is being asked to consider the following:

· Removing excessive capacity at Marple Hall School and Werneth High School
· Modifying provision at Stockport School to reinstate more places
· A public consultation on the proposed closure of Offerton School

This review of secondary schools has been brought about by falling student numbers. In 2004 there were more than 17,000 students aged 11 to 16 but by 2014 this is projected to fall to 13,000. There are several Stockport secondary schools where the number of surplus places is well above the nationally accepted level, where the Government advises local councils to take action. The Council has a duty to ensure the best use of its limited resources and it is crucial that this review of the effectiveness of current and future provision takes place.

If the Executive approves the proposals, a public consultation would begin at the end of June. Following this, the Executive would review the proposal and the public responses in early Autumn when a decision would be taken on whether or not to publish a Statutory Notice to close Offerton School. The closure would not be before July 2012 and there would need to be a phased withdrawal from that site. For further information please click here.

From the Council:

Stockport Council has beaten off national competition to secure a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) grant of £269,000 to provide work placements in the local heritage sector. HLF’s Skills for the Future programme aims to provide new training opportunities for unemployed people across the UK seeking a career in heritage.

Paid training places will be available from the autumn at a range of sites including Reddish Vale Country Park, Stockport Heritage Library and various museums, as well as alongside Stockport’s many voluntary heritage groups. The placements, which will be a year long, will teach trainees practical skills like traditional horticulture, conservation, document archiving and management of collections. For further information please visit www.hlf.org.uk.

From Stockport Council:

Arrangements for the school admissions are available to view at www.stockport.gov.uk/schooladmissions.

Please note that new oversubscription criteria for all Community primary and secondary schools, Church of England primary schools and Reddish Vale Technology College will be adopted for 2011/12.

School Year 2010/2011

Main Term Dates

* Autumn Term 2010 - Monday 6th September 2010 to Wednesday 22nd December 2010
* Spring Term 2011 - Tuesday 4th January 2011 to Friday 8th April 2011
* Summer Term 2011 - Tuesday 26th April 2011 to Friday 27th May 2011
* Primary - Monday 13th June 2011 to Friday 29th July 2011
* Secondary - Monday 6th June 2011 to Friday 22nd July 2011

Mid Term Holidays

* Autumn Term 2010 - Monday 25th October 2010 to Friday 29th October 2010
* Spring Term 2011 - Monday 21st February 2011 to Friday 25th February 2011

Public Holidays

* Good Friday (Friday 22nd April 2011) to Easter Monday (Monday 25th April 2011)
* May Day - Monday 2nd May 2011
* Spring Bank Holiday - Monday 30th May 2011

More than 60 young people from Stockport are to receive certificates for taking part in the ‘Compass’ scheme which could help them gain apprenticeships. The success of 14 to 16 year olds will be celebrated at a special ceremony on Wednesday 19th May at the Town Hall.

Compass is part of the newly formed 14-19 Services which is part of the Council’s Children and Young People’s Directorate and provides work based learning opportunities for young people as part of their educational programme.

Compass has been running for five years and during that time has worked closely with local employers, colleges and training providers and has developed an excellent record in progressing young people onto positive employment, apprenticeships or college.

For more information on Compass Training opportunities contact, Compass Co-ordinator John Gibbins on 0161 480 2679.

As a governor and parent at Gatley Primary, I’m very pleased indeed to be able to report that the school was last week rated as “outstanding” by Ofsted.

I can’t do better than echo the words of Chair of Governors Stuart Foster (who deserves his fair share of the credit himself):

I would like to congratulate Ms Murray and all the staff, children and fellow governors on achieving such a fantastic report with the school being judge as ‘outstanding’ from the Ofsted team.

The ‘outstanding’ judgement reflects the commitment of the whole school community to continually strive to achieve our vision for the children at Gatley Primary School.

And to quote from the Ofsted report itself:

This outstanding school has made remarkable progress since the previous inspection due to reflective, determined and skilful leadership and management.  All elements of its provision are of high quality.  The curriculum, in particular, is exceptional in the way that it makes creative links between subjects and involved pupils at every level in directing their own learning.

Exlcuding pupils from schools is the decision of head teachers and governing bodies.  In Stockport, as was discussed at the Council’s Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee last night, the numbers being excluded are higher than we’d expect.

There are times when a young person needs to be excluded, for their own good and that of other pupils and staff.  But excluding too many children too quickly, without trying everything else first, is just passing the problem onto someone else and quite possibly doing more harm than good.

In 2005-2006, Stockport headteachers excluded 1498 pupils for a total of 8858 days - much higher than other similar areas.

By 2008-09, after a great deal of work, 1006 pupils were excluded for a total of 4214.5 days.  Much lower, but there’s still more work to do.

From the Council’s side, the work has been driven by the Secondary Behaviour Review, running since 2007, that’s been working to help headteachers find ways to help problem children without excluding them or disrupting school for other pupils.

You can read the full report, in the Children and Young Peoples’ Scrutiny Committee agenda, here.

Yesterday evening I attended my first Children and Young People’s Scrutiny Committee at Stockport Council.  This is the committee, made up of councillors of all parties plus a non-councillor rep, which looks at what the Children and Young People’s Directorate are doing and, hopefully, makes useful suggestions.

We saw an excellent example yesterday of how this can work well.  Over several months, a small cross-party group of councillors with officer support have been investigating the way young carers are helped.  These are young people who find themselves caring for parents or siblings for a variety of reasons.

National statistics suggest that there are probably around 1,000 young carers in Stockport, but we only know of around 150.  That’s the first problem: young carers often don’t want to admit it.  They fear being bullied or stigmatised at school, or simply don’t recognise that they are carers - thinking what they’re doing is the norm.

But caring for others is a heavy burden for any child to take on without support.  Young carers often do poorly in school, get into trouble when they arrive late and so on.

The report we saw last night identifies that these young carers need help, but not huge amounts.  If we can identify them, there are small steps that could make a real difference.  For example, schools simply understanding their situation and giving them a little more leeway, or giving them access to a phone at lunchtime so they can check all’s OK at home would make a real difference.

You can read the report here, starting on page 169 of the agenda.

The ten local authorities in Greater Manchester have a decision to make over the next few weeks: whether to go ahead and form a new “City Region” - a body which would see the ten authorities working together to deliver transport (as now), post-16 education funding, skills & training funding and inward investment.

In Stockport we had an all-party briefing from officers, including Howard Bernstein who’s closely involved with  the plans.

The aim is for Stockport to make its decision at an Extraordinary General Meeting prior to the budget meeting on  25th Feb, with the Manchester-wide decision being taken before the General Election.

I should say up front that I haven’t made up my mind on this one.  I can certainly see some logic to it, but I’ve some big concerns too.

The current situation

After Greater Manchester County Council was abolished in 1985, the ten metropolitain borough councils established AGMA - the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities - as a voluntary way to work together where it made sense to do so.

Four “joint authorities” were also created to oversee/run fire, police, waste and (some) transport services across Greater Manchester.

It’s argued that AGMA has been beneficial, giving Greater Manchester a bigger voice, more influence over national and regional policy and more direct control city-wide decisions.

AGMA and the join authorities are not directly accountable to voters.  They have some accountability to councils.

The case for a City Region

The “City Region” is something new from central government.  The idea is to take regionally some of the powers currently held by Government agencies and quangos, in the area of our economic development.

For example, the City Region would control the £600 million annual budget for post-16 education in Greater Manchester, would work to attract investment and boost jobs.

We’re all joined at the hip, the argument goes.  We (the ten Greater Manchester authorities) need to work together more to benefit  us all.

The consultants say there’s no reason for this new “Combined Authority” City Region to cost more  - it’s claimed to be an efficient and effective option.

The alternatives

We’re told that there are two alternatives to this new Combined Authority City Region, covering economic development and transport.

1. Leave AGMA and the joint authorities as they are now, but create a new joint authority for economic development (on top of transport, waste, police & fire).

2. Keep the status quo.

The concerns

Here are some of the concerns that were raised in the briefing session:

• AGMA requires a 7-3 majority vote to take action - meaning that no one political party can force things through on its own.  The new Combined Authority will work on simple majority voting.
• The Combined Authority is not answerable to voters in any way.  If you think they’re doing something wrong, there’s no way you can vote to express that - especially if the leader of your council voted against the decision.  Local Authority councillors can have a degree of oversight.
• It’s much more difficult (and potentially not possible) for local authorities to withdraw from the Combined Authority once they’re in.  In fact, authorities could potentially be forced to join even if they don’t want to.
• The details are vague.  No-one knows exactly what the new body will do, how much money it will cost (or save) and whether it would be better than going it alone.  Lots of time and money has been spent investigating, but we’re still going on educated guesses.
• What if it went in the wrong direction?  Remember the Congestion Charge?  Had a referendum not been forced through, that would have been imposed by a similar body.
• Why bundle in transport (which is something we probably do want to continue being dealt with on a Greater Manchester basis) with the much woolier and less clear-cut economic investment?

This certainly isn’t my area of expertise, so there may be errors and omissions, which I’ll correct whenever they’re spotted.

In the meantime, please have your say.

The school admissions consultation is launched from Monday, 25 January to Monday, 22 March 2010. You can have your say on the Stockport website.

The Council have told us that the key proposed changes are:

· New admissions criteria proposed – from September 2011

· Holiday dates: Queen’s Jubilee – 2012.

· Primary In-year admissions – from September 2010: done centrally by Admissions Support & Advice Team.

· New closing dates and acceptance of offers for Reception & Year 7 intakes – for September 2011 admissions.

· Proposed Increase of Published Admission Number at Stockport School from 185 to 215.

Full details of the proposed changes, their rationale and the option to make responses to the consultation can be found on the Council’s website.

Plans to move 2010 key stage 2 SATs from the second week in May to the middle of June have been cancelled. The change, which had alarmed schools planning trips and other events, will now take place in 2011. The move was recommended by the expert group on assessment in its report earlier this year and accepted by ministers.

2010 test dates have now been confirmed as Monday 10 May to Friday 14 May 2010.

In 2011, under Stockport’s current holiday pattern of a two week break at Whit, means schools will return directly after the holiday in June to the week of SATs. While this could be problematic for schools and pupils, alternative solutions also have problems.

On Wednesday morning I met with Mrs Yule, the Headteacher at Lady Barn House School on School’s Hill, Cheadle.  This followed concern from local residents about traffic and parking around the school at dropping off and picking up times.

Hopefully I’ll find the time to write more detail about what the school has been doing, but for now I’ll give the summary.

The school does make efforts to minimise the problems.  In the morning children are dropped off in the car par, in the afternoon picking up is obviously trickier as the kids can’t always be there at just the right time.

Exiting the school, there are “no right turn” signs, though some parents ignore them.

The school encourages parents to be responsible when parking and driving, and are very happy for the police to hand out tickets to those breaking the law.  They regularly send out letters to parents reminding them of the need to be responsible.

Of course, most people who live near a school recognise that traffic increases for short periods in the mornings and afternoons - it’s a problem every school in the country has.

And, as Inspector Gilbertson told us at the Area Committee meeting, when you have parents parking illegally and willingly accepting the fine, with no intention of changing their behaviour, there’s little police or the school can do.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t improve the situation in this case.  I was keen to look at ways the Council could help the school to stop traffic needing to come onto Schools Hill at all.

We’re going to explore whether there’s a safe and affordable way to have parents parking off Schools Hill (perhaps Cheadle Baths or the Sainsburys/John Lewis car park) and be bussed or walked to school from there.

For both the school and the Council there are issues and challenges to be overcome; but we’re talking about it, and that’s got to be a positive start.

Cheadle’s Abney Hall has been a stately home, featured in an Agatha Christie novel, been a town hall, a language school and an office building.  Now its owners, Bruntwood, want it to become an Independent school, and they came along to Thursday’s Cheadle Village Partnership to tell us about it and get some feedback.

So what was the message from Bruntwood?

They were keen to stress that the development protects Abney Hall, that a lot of attention will be paid to avoiding traffic problems, and that users of the park will still be able to walk everywhere they can now.  Whether all of that’s achieved we’ll have to judge when the plans come out.

The plan is for an existing independent primary school with around 300 pupils to move into the Court building behind the main hall.  As those pupils left the primary school,a similar-sized senior school would grow up in the main hall.

There’s a long way to go (not that long, though - the aim is to open the primary school before the end of 2010).  In a straw poll at the Village Partnership meeting, most but not all were positive about the plans, from what we’d heard.

As always with anything that’s likely to come for planning permission, myself and Cllr Paul Porgess (the two councillors present) need to stay neutral and avoid expressing a view for or against.

This information copied from the Stockport Council website, accurate at 3.58pm on 10th January.

Click here for Stockport schools open/closed  on Monday 11th January

Stockport school open/closed status for 7th and 8th January, copied from Stockport Council website. Updated 7.29pm

As well as the schools listed above all Continuing Education Adult Centres are closed for the remainder of the week. There are no rehearsals for Senior Wind Band or the Stockport Youth Orchestra on Friday night or Stockport Schools’ Brass Bands (Saturday morning) this week.

The Education Service for the Sensory Impaired is open on Thursday and Friday this week.

The status of Stockport Children’s Centres and Edgeley Play Centre on Friday 8th January are as follows;

• Abacus – Open
• Belmont / Lancs Hill – Closed
• Brinnington – Closed
• Bredbury Green and Goyt Valley – Closed
• Bredbury, Romiley & Woodley – Open 9am – 3pm
• Cheadle & Gatley – Open
• Edgeley & Cheadle Heath – Open
• Edgeley Play Centre – Open
• Heatons – Open
• Hazel Grove – Open
• Ladybridge Park – Open
• Marple – Open
• Offerton – Closed
• Reddish Vale – Closed
• Reddish North – Open
• Stockport Central – Closed

This web page will be updated as more information comes through regarding school closures.

Stockport Council have a new website up and running - simple, lightweight and giving you key information (currently which schools are closed tomorrow and what’s happening with refuse and recycling collections).

The website is www.stockportalert.org.uk

This is in addition to the standard Stockport Council website, which will also carry the information (but went down earlier this evening under the weight of traffic).

See also latest information for Stockport schools on Monday 11th January .

This information is copied from the Stockport Council website.

Update at 8.36am on 7th January 2010.

Parents are advised to check individual school websites on Thursday 7th January for those schools which are open.

Listed below is the latest status of schools and Children’s Centres in Stockport as at 8.36am on Thursday 7th January 2010;

• Abingdon Primary - Closed
• Adswood Primary - Closed
• Adswood Nursery School - Open
• Alexandra Park Primary - Closed
• All Saints CE Primary (Stockport) - Closed
• All Saints CE Primary (Marple) - Closed
• Arden Primary - Closed
• Banks Lane Infant - Open
• Banks Lane Junior - Open
• Belmont Nursery - Closed
• Bolshaw Primary - Closed
• Bradshaw Hall Primary - Open
• Bramhall High School - Open to Years 9, 10 & 11
• Bredbury Green Primary - Closed
• Bredbury Green Nursery Unit - Closed
• Bridge Hall Primary - Closed
• Broadstone Hall Primary - Open
• Brookside Primary - Open
• Cale Green Primary - Open
• Castle Hill School - Closed
• Cheadle Heath Primary - Open
• Cheadle Hulme High - Closed
• Cheadle Primary - Closed
• Cheadle RC Infant - Closed
• Cheadle RC Junior - Closed
• Dial Park Primary - Closed
• Didsbury Rd Primary - Closed
• Etchells Primary - Closed
• Fairway Primary - Closed
• Fir Tree Nursery - Open
• Fir Tree Primary - Open
• Freshfield Nursery - Closed
• Gatley Primary - Closed
• Great Moor Infant - Open
• Great Moor Junior -  Open
• Greave Primary - Open
• Harrytown Catholic High - Closed
• Hazel Grove High School - Closed
• Hazel Grove Primary - Please check the school’s website on Thursday morning for an update
• Heaton School - Closed
• High Lane Primary - Open
• Hollywood Park Combined Centre - Closed
• Hursthead Infant - Open
• Hursthead Junior - Open
• Ladybridge Primary - Open
• Ladybrook Primary - Closed
• Lane End Primary - Open
• Larkhill Nursery - Open
• Larkhill Primary - Closed
• Lisburne School - Closed
• Ludworth Primary - Open
• Lum Head Primary - Open
• Meadowbank Primary - Closed
• Marple Hall High - Closed
• Mellor Primary - no decision yet
• Mersey Vale Primary - Open
• Moat House - Closed
• Moorfield Primary - Open
• Moss Hey Primary - Open
• Neville Road Infant School - Open
• Neville Road Junior School - Open
• Norbury Hall Primary - Open
• Norris Bank Primary - Open
• North Cheshire Jewish Primary - Open
• North Reddish Infant - Closed
• North Reddish Junior - Closed
• Offerton Hall Nursery - Closed
• Offerton High - Closed
• Oakgrove School - Closed
• Orrishmere Primary - Open
• Our Ladies RC Primary - Closed
• Outwood Primary - Closed
• Pendlebury PRU - Open
• Pownall Green Primary - To be announced on School’s website tomorrow
• Priestnall School - Closed
• Prospect Vale Primary - Closed
• Queens Rd Primary - Open
• Queensgate Primary - Closed
• Reddish Vale Early Years Centre - Closed
• Reddish Vale Technology College - Closed
• Romiley Primary - Open
• Rose Hill Primary - Open
• SBSS - Highfields (PRU) - Closed
• St Ambrose Catholic Primary - Open
• St Anne’s RC Secondary School - Closed
• St Bernadette’s RC Primary - no decision yet
• St Christopher’s Cathlic Primary - Open
• St Elisabeth’s CE Primary - Open
• St George’s CE Primary - Open
• St James RC High School - Closed
• St Joseph’s Catholic Primary (Stockport) - Closed
• St Joseph’s Infant School (Reddish) - Closed
• St Joseph’s Junior School (Reddish) - Closed
• St Marks CE Primary - Closed
• St Mary’s CE Primary - Closed
• St Mary’s Catholic Primary (Marple) -  Closed
• St Mary’s Catholic Primary (Stockport) - Closed
• St Matthews CE Primary - Open
• St Paul’s CE Primary - Closed
• St Peter’s Catholic Primary - Closed
• St Philip’s Catholic Primary - Open
• St Simon’s Catholic Primary - Closed
• St Thomas’ CE Primary (Stockport - Marriott Street) - Closed
• St Thomas’ Primary (Heaton Chapel) - Open
• St Winifred’s - Open
• Stockport School - Open to Years 7 & 11 from 10am to 3pm
• The Kingsway - Open to Year 11 only
• The Stockport Academy - Closed
• Thorn Grove Primary - Open
• Tithe Barn - Open
• Torkington Primary -  Open
• Valley School - Closed
• Vernon Park - Closed
• Warren Wood - Open
• Werneth High - Probable Close
• Westmorland Primary - Closed
• Whitehill Primary - Open
• Windlehurst School - Closed to pupils, possibly open to staff
• Woodley Primary - Closed

As well as the schools listed above all Continuing Education Adult Centres are closed for the remainder of the week and the Music Centre is closed on Thursday 7th January 2010 for tuition and ensemble.

The Education Service for the Sensory Impaired is open on Thursday 7th January 2010.

The status of the borough’s Children’s Centres are as follows;

• Abacus – Open
• Belmont/Lancashire Hill – Closed
• Bredbury Green and Goyt Valley – Closed
• Bredbury, Romiley & Woodley – Open 10am – 3pm (ante natal clinic relocated to Woodley Health clinic for this week only)
• Brinnington – Closed
• Cheadle & Gatley – Closed
• Edgeley & Cheadle Heath – Open
• Hazel Grove – Open
• Heatons – Open
• Ladybridge Park – Open
• Marple – Open
• Offerton – Closed
• Reddish Vale – Closed
• Reddish North – Open
• Stockport Central – Closed

This web page will be updated as more information comes through regarding adult centre and school closures.

Solutions SK, a Stockport Council wholly owned company have scooped a much sought after national award, beating 50 other entries from across the UK.

Solutions SK School Meals team won the National Overall Best Education Catering Team of the Year award at the Annual Network Performance Awards organised by the Association for Public Service Excellence.

Winning the award shows that the School Meals team provide a service that delivers value for money through recognised quality and performance indicators linked to standards of excellence.

Key Stage 2 test results were published on 1st December 2009. Verified results show that Stockport pupils are ranked 10th out of 150 Local Authorities for the expected Level 4 scores in reading, writing and mathematics.

Stockport did even better at the higher levels (Level 5 and above) in reading, writing and mathematics, and was 7th nationally.

Analysis also shows that Stockport’s Year 6 (11 year old) pupils made significant progress, and for the first time exceeded expectations based on the most challenging national comparisons.

EDUCATE - Early Dementia User’s Co-operative Aiming To Educate - looks to give people with dementia a voice through involvement in training, or speaking to others about their experiences of having dementia. EDUCATE is part of a two year multi agency project funded by the Department of Health to set up peer support for people with dementia.

Organisations involved in the project include NHS Stockport, Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, Stockport Council’s Adult Social Care, Age Concern and the Alzheimer’s Society. People wanting to get involved in EDUCATE are invited to an introductory session to be held at the Cheshire Conference Centre, Edgeley, Stockport on the afternoon of Wednesday 2nd December.

For more information about the event or EDUCATE, please contact Sally Mendham or Ruth Mills at Stockport Dementia Care Training on 0161 419 6016 or Ruth Chaplin, Occupational Therapist based at the Meadows in Offerton on 0161 419 6064 or email sally.mendham@nhs.net or ruth.chaplin@nhs.net.

Gatley Primary’s always been a good school, but under the leadership of Michelle Murray, Vanessa MacManus and the rest of the Senior Management Team, it’s been going from strength to strength over the last couple of years.

For the governors, this is sub-committee week (and somehow I seem to be very bad at getting the right dates and times in my diar).  Between the governors we’ve been reviewing the school’s achievements and plans, and I can only say that it’s nice when the main role of the governors is to congratulate the staff and children on their achievements.

We’re lucky to have a bunch of really good schools in our area.  Not only Gatley Primary but also Lum Head, Cheadle Primary and Kingsway.  I’m privileged to know many of the children and, in the vast majority of cases, the modern negative stereotypes we see all too often in the media couldn’t be further from the truth.

I’m running a series of posts to summarise over 400 pages of documents in way that helps those who live and work in Stockport Borough understand the issues we’re facing, the options we have and the Council proposals in how the Borough develops over the next 17 years.

This is the third post.  You can read my overview plus my piece on  the Accessibility Appraisal paper.  This one covers the Core Strategy DPD Preferred Options Consultation, which you can read in full, and comment on, here.

This time I’m trying to condense 140 pages into a few hundred words - wish me luck.

What issues is the strategy trying to tackle?

Although both the population of Stockport Borough and the amount of traffic has fallen slightly in the last few years, we don’t expect that to continue.   The Government is asking Stockport to provide 450 new dwellings (houses or flats) every year - that’s over 7,000 by 2026.

At the same time Stockport, like everywhere, has issues to tackle with how things are now.   We’re the third most polarised borough in the country with pockets of deprivation and much more affluent areas.  Our main roads are congested. Stockport Town Centre isn’t all it could be.  Lots of people live in the Borough and travel out for work, with lots more living outside and travelling in.  And, in common with most other areas, we have an aging population and a lack of affordable housing.

The general approach

So we expect to have thousands of new flats and houses, which means (over time), more shops, offices, schools, sport, leisure, culture and health facilities and cemetaries.  Where should they all go?

This was the subject of a previous consultation.  Different options were looked at and the conclusion was, in the main, to strengthen existing centres.  By far the most development is planned for Stockport Town Centre.  Another big chunk goes into the District Centres and the Large Local Centres, with a smaller amount elsewhere.

Stockport has 8 District Centres: Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Bramhall, Edgeley, Hazel Grove, Marple, Reddish and Romiley.  It has 10 Large Local Centres: Gatley, Heald Green, Moor Top, Heaton Moor, Shaw Road/Heaton Moor Road, Heaton Chapel, Davenport, Great Moor, North Reddish and Marple Bridge.

Housing

There’s more to this than just building lots of houses and flats.  How big should they be?  How expensive?  Where should they go?

The proposal in this strategy paper is

• a 50/50 split between houses and flats overall, with most flats going in the Town Centre (which will end up with a much higher population) and most houses going around the District and Large Local Centres.
• The majority of the flats to have two bedrooms.
• 40% of new housing to be affordable for those on lower incomes.
• 80% of new housing to be in existing buildings and previously developed land.
• More social rented housing for Bramhall, Cheadle Hulme, Cheadle, Edgeley, Davenport, Marple, Romiley and the Heatons.
• If Woodford Aerodrome becomes vacant, using it wholly or partially for housing is one of several options.
• Stockport currently has no formal Gypsy and Traveller pitches.  Following Government guidance, we are expected to create 35, plus another ten travelling showpeople pitches.  This should increase to 57 pitches in total by 2026 and they should be be in urban areas with good access to services.
• 50% of the new dwellings to be in the Central Housing Area, with up to 2,000 in the Town Centre (the Central Housing Area is the Town Centre plus some areas around it).
• A further 35% of new dwellings to be within walking distance of District and Large Local centres.
• 15% of dwellings to be built elsewhere.

Reducing the size of some struggling centres

Even in the recession, most of our District and Local Centres are doing OK, including Cheadle, Gatley, Bramhall and Heald Green.  Walk around them and you won’t see many empty units.

Some are suffering more, including Hazel Grove and Edgeley.  For these, one option is to reduce the size of the centres - for example, by turning retail units at the edges of the centres into residential properties.

For all centres, the paper also offers the option of limiting the number of hot food and fast food outlets either within a centre altogether or near to schools and play areas.

Cemetaries

It may not be something most of us give much thought to, but Stockport’s cemetaries will be full in 10-15 years.  Should we create new cemetaries (if so, where?) or re-use existing ones.

Strengthen District and Local Centres

The overall strategy is to maintain and enhance the Town Centre along with existing District and Local Centres.

Here, I confess, I don’t think the document is very clear (and, in one case, makes a fairly blatant mistake).  The section in question is 7.135 on page 70.  It refers to changes in planning policies.

The paper proposes  controlling the scale, clustering and mix of uses in Centres to meet local needs and enhance the viability of the Centres.  Great in principle, and fine if there are lots of retailers and developers with different schemes.  The problem comes when the commercial environment isn’t quite so strong.

You might want to have a retail outlet in a particular place, but if no retailers want to open there, your real choice might be something else (a take-away, for example) or nothing. It could well be that nothing - an empty unit - is the best choice in some cases, but we should be aware of the issue.

With that in mind, I’m not clear exactly what the paper’s proposing.

Outside Local and District Centres, the paper proposes that we permit a change of use from service to non-service (e.g. offices or residential) unless there’s a good reason not to, as part of the strategy to strengthen the Centres.

In Large Local Centres, the paper says we should restrict the size of new shops and leisure units (where not re-using an existing building) to a maximum of  500 square metres (and 250 square metres in other Local Centres).  For District Centres, the much higher limit of 25,000 square metres is proposed.  (I think incorrect wording results in this paragraph actually saying the opposite of this).

There’s also a sentence which, I think, suggests that a new small convenience store would not be permitted if other local retailers already provide the same services.

Requiring that new convenience shops meeting local needs (up to max 250 square metres) will only be allowed where there are no alternative sustainably accessible facilities.

Again, it not necessarily a problem; but I don’t understand why we’d want to single out convenience shops.  If we’re going to protect that one type of shop from competition, why not protect newsagents, cafes or hairdressers?

Building business

The plan identifies the need to build strong business centres around Stockport, and argues that this should be primarily achieved by enhancing and promoting the Town Centre for new office development.  That fits in with the principle of enhancing the Town Centre overall, and concentrates more traffic flows into the centre (which is the location best served by public transport and car parking).

In particular, the strategy is to attract ICT, digital, creative and new media companies into offices around the A6 south of the M60 - especially in the civic quarter.

There’s also strong office provision in some our District and Local Centres: Bramhall, Cheadle, Cheadle Hulme, Hazel Grove, Stepping Hill and Gatley.  These should be supported.

Heavier industry should have direct access to main access routes (e.g. motorways) without having to go through residential areas.  The Bredbury Industrial Area is given as an example of a location that fits the bill.

The report says that there’s no specific need to find new areas of employment close to deprived areas: either they are there already, or there are good public transport links from those areas to the Town Centre.

Sport, green spaces and leisure

Stockport has an oversupply of senior sports pitches (compared to the Government recommendation for how many we should have) but slightly too few mini soccer facilities.

The report also identifies a shortfall of leisure facilities in the Town Centre, Hazel Grove, Reddish, Romiley and Edgeley, with too few sports halls (relative to the population) in the north and north east of the Borough.

There’s a discussion about our green spaces, both “formal open space” - parks and similar - and other green spaces.

Should we continue the current strategy of retaining a semi-rural character for our river valleys; or should we use that space to meet more formal needs, for example by building sports pitches there?

Overall, though the Cheadle area (Cheadle, Gatley, Heald Green and the northern part of Cheadle Hulme) was identified as having more than enough formal open space (again, compared to Government recommendations), the Borough as a whole falls 105 hectares short.  The Heatons also do well for green space, with Victoria, Tame Valley and Werneth needing improvement.

The plan rejects giving absolute protection to current green space.  It gives the example of the Cheadle Committee area, where there’s lots of formal green space and a shortage of affordable housing.  It suggests the option to swap some should be left open.

Transport

The strategy paper advocates more people living, working and playing in Stockport Town Centre along with our District and Local Centres.  If that’s going to be successful, we need to be able to get to and from those places.

Issues identified include:

• a lack of orbital train links from Stockport to Manchester Airport and Tameside
• a lack of train links between Stockport and some District Centres (Marple, Cheadle) and a general weakness in public transport between Marple and Stockport
• congestion across many of the Borough’s main roads

It notes that there are plans currently in place to improve transport provision, including SEMMMS, aiming to deliver the extended A555 Relief Road by 2016 and rail improvements scheduled to start from 2014.

Other reports and plans are noted including the 2009-2015 Stockport Cycling Strategy,  the Greater Manchester Integration Transport Strategy (GMITS) and the South Pennines Integrated Transport Strategy (SPITS).

Beyond those (which I won’t cover here, but will do at some stage if I have the time), the paper comes up with a selection of ideas that fall some way short of firm proposals:

• we need to shift from single-occupancy car use to more car sharing, cycling,  walking and public transport.
• promote flexible working and home working
• introduce more 20mph zones in residential areas
• improve the network of walking and cycling routes, both direct (normally on-road) and off-road for recreational and less confident cyclists.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Core Strategy Development Plan Document (DPD) consultation paper.  This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes.   Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

The Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper is part of Stockport Council’s Core Strategy - how the borough needs to develop over the next 15-20 years.  The document is being consulted on and you have until 25th November to give your opinions.

This is my summary of that paper.  Since the full document is 82 pages, you can take it as read that things are missed out.  Also, this is purely from me reading the document - which you can do too.  I’ve no extra information and I may have made mistakes.  With that in mind, let’s press on.

What’s the purpose of the Accessibility Appraisal? 

We should start off by being clear about what the document is and isn’t trying to achieve.  It doesn’t lay out proposals for what should be done in Stockport.  You won’t find plans to improve a certain bus service, build new housing in a certain area or create a new retail park.

Rather, it attempts to set the scene, to provide the basis for making those proposals, to define the problems that we need to solve and the challenges we need to meet.  Not quite as exciting, but very important.  If you’re not asking the right questions, your chance of coming up with the right answers is pretty low.

What is accessibility?

For this study, “accessibility” is simply how easy it is for people to get to everywhere they need to: their jobs, shops, schools, medical centres, hospitals, pubs, restaurants, leisure facilities, parks and community facilities.

You may reach them by car; but not everyone has a car and, even for those who do, it’s not much good saying the shop’s just down the road if you have to sit in a traffic jam for an hour to get there.  You might also get to them by train, bus, bike or on foot.

The Government is asking for over 7,500 new dwellings to be built in Stockport over the next 17 years, meaning more people and more traffic.

A big part of our challenge is to figure out how to organise that so we get the extra flats and houses in the right places and keep (and improve) this accessibility, for both new and existing residents.

Dealing with inequality

Stockport has relatively high inequality, both between areas in the borough (e.g. compare Brinnington and Bramhall) and within areas (e.g. older people).  It’s very important we provide access for all, not just the wealthier in our community.  We also need to recognise that more deprived areas have different problems, such as poorer health and higher unemployment.

Two examples

Let’s suppose we look at a relatively poor area, and we think it might be a good place to build additional low cost housing too.  So we can predict we’ll have a population who not only need all the usual services and facilities like shops and parks, but will have a higher need for healthcare and certain sorts of jobs.  Additionally, they are less likely to have cars.

For an area like this, it will be very important to ensure safe and reasonably fast access to healthcare, shops, workplaces, entertainment and the rest of it by public transport, walking and cycling.

Alternatively, we can look at a wealthier area with high car ownership.  In this case, it might be more important to look at congestion, to predict where new pinch points in the  road network will emerge and tackle those (for example, through the SEMMMS strategy).

 So what are the problems?

The paper is the result of a big study that looked across the borough, worked out how good access was to all the different services in each place and mapped it.  That was also compared to areas of low car ownership and poor health.

Overall, the picture is clear.  Those of us in the centre, north and north west of the borough have - by and large - the best access to all the different services.  That’s areas like the Town Centre, Cheadle, Gatley, the Heatons, Reddish, Cheadle Hulme and out to Hazel Grove.

Those in the south and east of the borough have the poorest access to services: Bramhall (outside the village centre), Woodford, Romiley, Marple, Bredbury and Offerton, for example.

That’s not necessarily a problem right now: plenty of people choose to live somewhere more rural and happily trade-off being a bit further from the shops against living in their preferred location.

It is a problem, however, where you have a population with poor health and low car ownership who also have poor access to services; or where the roads are getting so congested that drivers can’t get to where they want to go.

So, for example, the study identifies a lack of links from Marple to Stockport Town Centre and congestion around Bramhall Moor as serious issues.  It also expresses concern about the lack of access to services in places like Bredbury Green, Cherry Tree Lane (Romiley) and Marple South (especially Hawk Green).

And to absolutely no-one’s surprise, the study idenfies congestion issues on most of the main roads around the borough.

What’s to be done?

As I said before, this report is about identifying the questions, with the answers still to come, and that’s an important thing to get right.  However, we do get a sniff of what some of the answers might look like.

The study suggests better promoting the Town Centre as  an evening destination.  That means not only having the restaurants, pubs, clubs, cinemas, theatres and the like, but also public transport links that run late into the night.

It also talks about promoting mixed developments (where you have housing, workplaces and other services all in the same area) and more “employment sites” around the borough.  The aim is to reduce the distances people need to travel, which would reduce congestion, not to mention making our lives more pleasant.

For example, the report idenfies Cheadle Royal and Woodford as two such centres, but warns that public transport access to both are currently poor and would need to be improved.

What’s there to consult on?

So far I’ve tried to summarise the content of the report.  This is a consultation and the paper says

Comments are invited on the proposed approach. By way of guidance comments would be welcome in relation to the following questions:
1. Do you agree with the principles behind the approach?
2. Do you think the process is sufficiently transparent to use as a basis for accessibility policies?
3. Do you agree with the emphasis of the approach on public choice rather than just achieving a minimum accessibility standard?
4. Would you like to see this approach applied in support other areas of policy development (such as in education or health service provision)?

What might you say?  You might think the report is about right - if so, it’s worth saying it.  If nothing else, it’ll give the people who wrote it a bit more job satisfaction!

Do you agree that accessibility is the right thing to focus on?  As we look forwards over the next two decades, should we be spending time, money and energy on minimising the travel time for people to get to where they want to go; or is that the wrong goal?

You might feel that it hasn’t got the measures right when looking at accessibility.  As the report admits, it doesn’t identify pinch points in the transport network, nor does it take into account off-road transport routes such as footpaths and cycle paths.

Perhaps you disagree with the idea of trying to bring our jobs closer to our homes and feel that a better solution would be to build a transport network to shuttle people as quickly as possible to Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield, Leeds and elsewhere to give Stockport residents the widest catchment area for jobs.

Question 3 links into ideas of what the Local Authority - and its partners - are there for.  Is it the job of the public sector to make our transport network as good as it can be, or should we be doing much less (and so needing less money to do it, perhaps resulting in lower Council Tax).

Until 25th November, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

Disclaimer

In this post I’ve attempted to summarise Stockport Council’s Accessibility Appraisal Consultation Paper. This is my own work; it is not an official Council or Liberal Democrat summary and I’d be frankly amazed if there weren’t significant omissions and mistakes. Nothing in this summary should be taken as indicating either my or the Liberal Democrats’ support for, or agreement with, the strategy paper.

Most of the things I get involved with are pretty immediate.  Problems that need fixing as soon as possible, or at most issues like the Kingsway filter that might take a couple of years to sort out.

So thinking about how I see Stockport developing up to 2026 requires a bit of a shift in focus.

That’s the idea behind Stockport Council’s Core Strategy.  Some progress has been made on this and the latest stage is now open for consultation until 25th November.

The issues aren’t simple.

Like everywhere else in the country, Stockport needs to provide new housing (at least 450 dwellings a year - nearly 8,000 by 2026.  That’s a whole Cheadle & Gatley and a bit more besides (we have about 6,500 dwellings in the ward).

What should the mix of housing be?  Where should it be located?  How many flats?  How much social housing?

How do we build the economic future of the borough, providing jobs, education and training for current and future residents?

What needs to be done to attract more people into the Town Centre along with our local and district centres (Cheadle is a district centre, Gatley is a local centre).  How do we ensure not only vibrant retail centres but also the best access for all to leisure, culture, education, health, open space and other community facilities.

How do we protect our open spaces, greenbelt land and heritage?

Stockport is already congested, so how can we get everyone moving even with thousands of extra homes?  What mix of buses, trains, facilities for cyclists and pedestrians and, of course, private car travel is right?

For the next month, you can visit the Council’s consultation portal, read the documents, register online and submit comments.  You can also submit your comments by email to planning.policy@stockport.gov.uk.

The actual consultation documents are fairly involved - together there’s several hundred pages.

So, to get more people involved, I’m currently reading and summarising the different documents - hopefully in a way that draws out the key questions and issues.

First there’s the Accessibility Appraisal.  That document sets the scene - it’s more about defining the issues than coming up with solutions.  It looks at how easy or difficult it is for people to get to where they want to go - to access schools, shops, jobs, leisure and healthcare, for example.

Next is the Core Strategy Consulation, which looks forward over the next 17 years with proposals covering housing, jobs, green spaces, sport and leisure, transport and more.

The other three papers, which I haven’t summarised yet are:

• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Habitats Regulations Assessment Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report
• Core Strategy DPD: Preferred Options - Sustainability Appraisal Screening Report Annexes

I’ve got a big leaflet (A2 fold-out) from Stockport Art Gallery with details of lots of events between now and February.

Far too much to detail here, but it includes:

• Creative writing workshops and competition
• Poetry workshops
• “Who do we think we are” exhibition including art workshops, dance performances, “trace your family history” and dance workshops.

I thoroughly enjoyed Gatley Primary’s end of year concert last night.  Congratulations to everyone involved - the guitar, percussion, violin and brass groups.

The choir just gets better and better - last night’s selection of traditional African songs had everyone singing along and just sounded great.

Our local Lib Dem MP, Mark Hunter, has exposed the shocking shortfall in central Government funding for our children in Stockport, compared to Manchester and London.

Figures uncovered in a parliamentary question from Mr Hunter indicated that in 2009/10 while Stockport Metropolitan Borough Council only received £152,404 million from central Government through the dedicated schools grant. Manchester received £280,993 million. Stockport Council receives less than the English average of £194,872 million and only a fifth of the money allocated to Kent who receives a massive £791,332 million.

Per pupil funding was also less than Manchester with Stockport only receiving £4,043 per pupil compared to £4,731 for a pupil in Manchester and £5,044 per pupil in London.

Money from the dedicated schools grant is ring-fenced and comes directly from central Government to pay for schools, but does not include money for academies which goes directly from central Government to the school.