Agenda item

Our ‘Ambition for Education’ makes clear, North Tyneside continues to have an education system to be proud of; one that remains a strong performer regionally and nationally. This reflects the hard work of education leaders and their teams, governing bodies, Elected Members, Authority staff and the fantastic children and young people.

The purpose of this report is to outline the work that has been done to consider post-16 education provision in the North Shields area of the Borough and develop the Mayor and Cabinet’s policy position.

The Mayor and Cabinet received a report to request endorsement of a policy position on the development of sixth form provision for young people from North Shields.

As the Mayor and Cabinet know the longstanding arrangements for sixth form provision in North Shields were centralised at, what was Tynemouth Sixth Form College and latterly Queen Alexandra College as part of TyneCoast Group.

In the summer of 2020 TyneCoast took the decision to move out of the Queen Alexandra site and subsequently have decided to stop providing sixth form education once the current year 13 compete their studies in July.

This brought to a point an issue that has been discussed for some time; what is the right way to provide sixth form education for young people from North Shields.  Following a discussion with Cabinet colleagues I asked the officer team to work with me and some of my colleagues to develop a policy position for the Mayor and Cabinet.

With the help of Cabinet colleagues, Cllr Hannah Jonson and Cllr Carl Johnson and North Shields elected members Cllr Rebecca O’Keefe, Cllr Bruce Pickard and Cllr Matt Wilson we spent 6 months last year looking at the matter.  We carefully considered population and demand.  We looked at the national guidance.  And we looked at a range of possible options.

We considered three in some detail; looking at what we wanted to achieve for our young people and what could be done to deliver a practical outcome.  This report summarises those discussions and explains our settled view was to work with John Spence Community High School and Pele Trust to work up a proposal to add sixth form provision to the school.

I am pleased to say the Head Teacher and the Chief Executive of both the trust and the school are very enthusiastic about working with us.  In addition,  in the short term, we also agreed to look at the current barriers to attending sixth form provision given that young people from North Shields must travel further than other young people in the Borough.

Can I thank Cllrs Johnson, Johnson, O’Keefe, Pickard and Wilson as well as the officer team who supported our work.

And can I ask Cabinet to agree the recommendations at paragraph 1.2.

Cabinet considered the following decision options:

Option 1: Accept the recommendations outlined in section 1.2 of the report.

Option 2: Not to accept the recommendations outlined in section 1.2 of the report.

RESOLVED that 1) the work to support the policy consideration by the Cabinet Member for Education, Inclusion, Employment and Skills to look at options for post-16 education provision in North Shields be noted; 2) further work be authorised to be undertaken to progress the preferred option for the development of a school-led sixth form (post-16 provision) based at John Spence Community High School; 3) that the Director of Children Services, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Education, Inclusion, Employment and Skills, be authorised to take all necessary steps to progress the work, in line with the Department for Education guidance; and 4) agree that Cabinet will receive further report as required on progress made.

(Reason for decision:  This option will enable young people to access a high quality sixth form experience in the North Shields area and meets the policy objectives of the Mayor and Cabinet.)