Securing the Future of Rural and Coastal Education

Chair: Lord Mohammed; Aide: Paul McGarry; Hall Aide: Duncan Brack

Submitted by: 14 members 
Mover: Caroline Voaden MP (Spokesperson for Schools) 
Summation: Cllr Lucy Nethsingha

Conference notes that:

1. Research from the Education Policy Institute which found that a falling birthrate has created a drop in pupil demand that exposes up to 800 primary schools across England to potential closure by 2029.
2. 68 per cent of teacher trainees in more rural areas like Cornwall require family support during their traineeship, and 78 per cent of trainees require a car to get to placements.
3. Since the academic year 2014/15, teachers in small rural schools have left the profession or moved to schools in other areas at a higher rate than those in urban areas.
4. That the Government’s removal of the Rural Services Delivery Grant has made it harder for local authorities to deliver rural services, including education.
5. Children in rural areas enjoy fewer enrichment activities, educational visits and work experience opportunities.
6. That the Labour Government’s rollout of the ‘Coastal Challenge’ is deeply limited in scope and, unlike the historic London Challenge upon which it is inspired, is entirely unsupported by dedicated funding.
7. Government data collection on coastal and rural schools remains inadequate to understanding the unique challenges of delivering a rural education.

Conference believes that:

1. Every child, regardless of their postcode, deserves access to a world-class education and a thriving local school.
2. Coastal and rural schools are the heartbeat of their communities, and supporting them is essential to ensuring the vibrant social fabric of smaller towns and villages.
3. Existing funding mechanisms fail to recognise the realities of coastal and rural geographies, unfairly penalising small schools for unavoidable and structurally higher per-pupil delivery costs.
4. Resolving the teacher retention crisis in isolated regions requires building sustainable local career pathways for local people and existing school support staff, rather than solely depending on graduate relocation schemes.

Conference reaffirms Liberal Democrat pledges to:

1. Commit to conducting trials of mobile youth work teams, which either use existing local hubs or mobile facilities, as decided by the relevant local authority.
2. Increase school and college funding per pupil above the rate of inflation every year.

Conference calls on the Government to invest in coastal and rural schools by:

1. Conducting an immediate review of the Dedicated Schools Grant to ensure that the national funding formula fully reflects the higher per-pupil costs of educating pupils in coastal and rural areas.
2. Ensuring that any review recognises sparsity and rurality as distinct funding variables, and allows for local adjustments within local authorities where data is reliable and rollout is feasible.
3. Improving data coordination and collection between the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affair and the Department for Education (DfE) on rural and coastal schools so that definitions of rural and urban are reflected in DfE data.
4. Enabling school leaders to plan ahead by ensuring they are sighted on DfE’s funding strategy beyond annual funding settlements.
5. Piloting local ‘Grow Your Own’ talent pipelines through a teacher apprenticeship scheme specifically targeted at rural and coastal areas, and providing a dedicated, funded pathway for local teaching assistants and support staff to transition into fully qualified teachers.
6. Encouraging educators to work in coastal and rural settings by introducing a targeted teacher recruitment and retention incentive, including a stipulated financial bonus for educators who commit to teaching in the most rural schools for a set number of years.
7. Supporting local education authorities and multi-academy trusts who wish to lengthen the school day in order to deliver enrichment activities, and working with transport companies to ensure there are sufficient travel options near schools which elect to do so.
8. Establishing a Rural School Transport Guarantee, beginning with a reinstatement of a ring-fenced rurality payment to local authorities for maintaining specific bus routes used by schoolchildren, with the aim of equalising rural per capita bus funding on these specific routes when the public finances allow.
9. Launching the ‘Rural and Coastal School Network’ as a genuinely national scheme to drive up standards in underserved regions, fostering collaboration and sharing best practices across participating areas, with funding to back it up.
10. Implementing a ‘presumption against closure’ rule for good and outstanding rural and coastal schools, requiring local authorities or academies to produce a community impact assessment as part of the off-rolling process.
11. Creating dedicated teams within DfE which support schools with falling pupil rolls to utilise their spare space for commercial and community purposes.
12. Piloting twinning initiatives between rural, coastal and urban schools, drawing on the expertise of rural and coastal schools to deliver outdoor education experiences for students from urban areas, and in return, enabling children from rural areas to enjoy the cultural opportunities available in urban areas.

Applicability: England

Mover: 7 minutes; summation of motion and movers and summation of any amendments: 4 minutes; all other speakers: 3 minutes. For eligibility and procedure for speaking in this debate, see page 10 of the agenda. You can submit a speaker's card online here or in person.

The deadline for amendments to this motion is 13.00 Monday 7 September; see pages 11-12 of the agenda for more information.

Those selected for debate will be printed in Conference Extra and Saturday’s Conference Daily. The deadline for requests for separate votes is 09.00 Thursday 17 September; see page 9 of the agenda for more information.