School's not out for summer

August 2009

Many of you may have seen our successful summer school programme featured on the national TV news this month.

The BBC asked to come and film some of the great work we do during the school holidays to help young people with their reading, writing and numbers.

Our summer school and events programme is the biggest and best in the country. We want to make sure that all young people have something interesting to do and get involved in.

It is a great example of how we are enabling children to achieve their full potential. We have a duty in law to secure high standards of education for our pupils. That is why, when we're faced with a school that is not performing at its best, we will step in to help out.

Together with Councillor Quintin Peppiatt, the executive member for children and young people, I met with Mervyn Wilson, principal of The Co-Operative College educational charity, to discuss how we might work together to improve standards at Royal Docks School in Custom House.

Exam results there haven't been the best and it is close to the bottom of schools nationally in terms of performance.

We believe that turning Royal Docks into a National Challenge Trust School offers the best option to get it back on the right road. The Co-operative College would become partners advising on the curriculum and staffing and we would want to involve the University of East London as well.

We will improve performance at the school. Pupils and parents deserve nothing less and we want them to play a meaningful part in the running of the school.

We have one of the youngest populations in the country; achieving better outcomes for them has to be at the heart of what we do.