I was very sorry to hear about the resignation from the
County Council last week of our Cabinet Member for Education, Lisa Chambers.
Although we have not always agreed on everything, Lisa was very good to work with. I have huge
respect for her professionalism and her total dedication to her Cabinet role.
Under her direction, over the past two and a half years, educational attainment
in Suffolk Schools has certainly turned the corner both at the secondary and
primary level. As a recent nasty and,
to my mind, gratuitous letter in the EADT showed, Lisa, perhaps inevitably, was not always popular
with all members of the teaching profession, but she was brave, stuck to her
guns, and got results.
In addition to her work on school improvement, Lisa was a
steadfast campaigner for Fairer Funding for Schools. This was a movement supported by a coalition
of some 40 MP’s and many councillors from all over the country. They worked
tirelessly to achieve a change in the national funding formula for schools.
Under the current arrangements schools in the best funded areas in England receive a per
capita grant per pupil that is over £2000 higher than the worst funded. Suffolk comes towards the bottom of the pile.
In his budget speech yesterday George Osborne confirmed the
news that there will be a new national funding formula for schools from
2017, and it is believed that this will benefit rural areas such as Suffolk. Of
course money is not everything, but it certainly helps, and Lisa’s efforts in
this area have clearly paid off.
I wish Lisa all the best in the future and am sure that she
will continue to shine brightly in her new job.
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