Welcomed local @unibirmingham students Claire and Becky to Parliament today for 2nd stage of their #Parliamentors programme placement
— Richard Burden MP (@RichardBurdenMP) June 18, 2013
Health for Life event – children from Forestdale and Fisher schools on course for healthy future pic.twitter.com/Bjx20XFNNo
— Richard Burden MP (@RichardBurdenMP) June 18, 2013
Over the last year I have been raising the issue of local primary schools being forced – and often bullied – by Michael Gove’s Department for Education into becoming academies. One of the main problems has been a complete lack of transparency, with schools unable to get dispassionate guidance from government officials or even to get them to put information in writing, and...
The child poverty figures published today paint a stark picture.
One in five British children live below the poverty line. Across Birmingham it is up to three in ten – and in parts of the constituency it is as high as four in ten. This poverty cripples a child’s chance to lead a happy and healthy life and makes it so much harder for them to reach their potential.
Many primary schools in Birmingham have been facing pressure from the Department for Education to become academies, whether or not they wish to do so. I have written about this online before here and here. One of those schools was West Heath Primary School in my constituency. This week the school found out that the Department for Education has decided not to continue the forced academy process...
This week Parliament rose for the Summer recess. At the end of the week, schools in Birmingham break up for the summer too. But some of them do so not knowing what the future will look like come September. Over the past few months, I have been trying to get to the bottom of what is happening in relation to the Department for Education pressuring a number of primary schools in my constituency to...