Sheffield City Council to face 'no confidence' vote on education under achievement

3.25.01pm UTC (GMT +0000) Tue 6th Feb 2007

Labour vote of no confidence

Liberal Democrats on Sheffield City Council are set to move a vote of 'no confidence' in the ability of the ruling Labour Group to deliver a quality education for the city's young people. They are proposing that a top-level special taskforce is setup to address the worrying performance in pupil attainment.

Since Labour came to power in 2002 education results have been getting progressively worse when comparing them to the national average. Poor performance includes:

(1) the gap between Sheffield and the national average becoming wider in Key Stage 2 (ages 7-11) at Primary School level;

(2) the gap between Sheffield and the national average becoming wider in Key Stage 3 (ages 11-14) as a whole, including English, Maths and Science;

(3) the gap between Sheffield and the national average on the percentage of pupils gaining five or more A* - C GSCE grades (ages 14-16) widening, both on the old measure and the new measure which includes Maths and English results;

(4) the council missing every single mainstream pupil attainment target bar one in the 2006/2007 performance plan;

These results are in spite of hardwork from local pupils, teachers and parents. Lib Dems believe that the poor performance is down to the Labour Council and its failures on a number of levels including, failure to support schools, breaking up the LEA family and a lack of ambition.

As well as moving the vote of 'no confidence' Liberal Democrats are proposing to setup a special "Sheffields Future - Improving Education" taskforce to come up with a new improvement plan.

The group would be asked to review the current system and look at best practice in better performing parts of the UK. Lib Dems will propose that the group consists of council and university experts as well as local parents, teachers and politicians from all parties on the council.

Cllr Sylvia Anginotti, Liberal Democrat Shadow Cabinet member for Children's Services said: -

"We have had setback after setback in terms of pupil attainment in spite of the hardwork from local pupils, teachers and parents. The gap between Sheffield and the national average is getting wider and the blame for this lies squarely with Labour's Town Hall bosses. Amongst other things, they have failed to support schools, broken up the LEA family and showed a clear lack of ambition"

"Enough is enough and its time we saw a step change in policy to deal with this worrying decline. Every parent in Sheffield is entitled to a quality education for their children, but we have no confidence that Labour will deliver with their present strategy which has a track record of failure"

"We are proposing a new approach that would see all local stakeholders have an input into a new improvement plan aimed at closing the education gap and boosting achievements of our young people. We want to see raised aspirations and a new ambition in the Town Hall to deliver real improvements"

"Our young people are the future of Sheffield. If we fail to give them the tools to fulfil their full potential now, Sheffield as a city will never be able to reach its full potential in the future"