PUPILS, teachers and governors are being failed at schools across Staffordshire, a Labour election candidate has said.
Jacob Marshall will contest the Lichfield City South seat on 1st May.
He said that the reaction on the doorstep during campaigning highlighted concerns with the way the Conservatives have run education at Staffordshire County Council/
“The county council manages only a handful of schools directly, with the rise of academy-style schools, but the Council makes decisions on funding, priorities and policy.
“But in the last few weeks, I’ve heard again and again that this is exactly where things aren’t working well.
“Firstly, according to Department for Education data, in 2023-24 there were nearly 900 Staffordshire pupils in infant classes where the class size was over 30 – and over 7,000 in junior classes. That simply isn’t good enough.
“Secondly, I’ve heard again and again that there aren’t enough secondary school and Sixth Form places.
“Parents have been frantic with worry, hoping that their child will get into a school that’s a reasonable distance away. That’s on the council’s funding decisions – they simply haven’t got it right.”
The full list of candidates for the Lichfield City South seat are:
- Martın Bayley (Reform)
- Jamie Christie (Lib Dem)
- Colin Greatorex (Conservatives)
- Jessica Kelly (Green)
- Jacob Marshall (Labour)
The schools in every county have suffered because of the mass building of new home and lack of investment in the infrastructure. Schools are bad doctors are even worse in lichfield. He’s not saying what everyone doesn’t already know and adding thousands of new homes to all these places is just piling the pressure on.
Well said, Jacob. Yiu are completely right in what you say here. With your knowledge and expertise in the education field, you will make a great County Councillor. Living in the area that you want to represent will be a great asset too, as you will know first hand about the local issues that are coming up. I’m really hoping that the voters in the Lichfield City South County Division will see that and vote for you on 1st May. Certainly, the residents in the area that I’ve been speaking to over the last few weeks are all behind you.
Jacob, the Labour Government have mandated that Lichfield District Council must more than double the rate of house building over the coming decade (while reducing the rate of houses being built in urban areas like Birmingham). Do you think that will make this situation better, or worse?
Hmmmmm ! so County Council education departments are supposed to use a crystal ball to second guess the demographic of each new house planned to be built in every catchment ? i.e. they’re expected to predict how many children will be in each house before they’re even rented/purchased and precisely which age bracket they’ll be in so as to have a classroom ready waiting for them to attend. What wizardry will achieve that ? It’s not the way I’d expect my Council Tax to be used. Cart before the horse perhaps ? Suppose the majority of the houses become occupied by empty nesters who mostly have the where with all to splash out on new housing cost base – pretty useless investment in school infrastructure methinks..
Wait is there an election looming? Haven’t heard anything about this yet, maybe the candidates don’t want our vote. After all it’s only Boley Park with a tiny number of residents.
Councillor Phillip White said on LL Facebook “In Staffordshire 99% of parents get one of their preferred school choices for their children. This is because the council [CC] has a highly successful programme of building new schools and extending existing ones including building the first. In a county with a growing population it is a real success story for Conservative run Staffordshire County Council.”
Yet Pullen states house building is making the school situation worse even though Councillor White spins there is no situation because they are doing a great job building. Maybe a unitary authority can flex housing around a much bigger physical area in line with available services and just one set of councillors can agree a position, instead of contradicting one another. Oh dear!
Cllr. Marshall is Labour’s oppo to my current Conservative seat and disingenuous with his stats. His quote claims the county is under-performing on class sizes. The opposite is the case: average infant class sizes for 23/24 are 25.8 in Staffs. (26.6 for all of England). For KS2, it’s 27.3 in Staffs. (37.6 for England). Even the stat. used (classes over 30) has Staffs. better than Birmingham and Nottinghamshire (coincidentally Labour control). Cllr. Marshall makes no mention of using Teaching Assistants. They change the teacher: pupil ratio massively.
The most misleading factor is for him to be pictured in front of King Edward VI School, Lichfield. The text is about the county but the picture suggests the stats relate largely to King Ed’s. It is regularly in the top 20 of Staffs. schools and often in the Top 10. His quote is unfair to the hard-working staff, supportive parents and bright students’ results.
@Colin Greatorex – teaching assistants make no difference to the teacher:pupil ratio. They make a difference to the adult:pupil ratio. As you seem so keen on accuracy I’m sure you’d like to issue a correction. After all, it would be disingenuous to suggest teaching assistants are the same as fully qualified teachers.