Big Community Conversation questions and answers - Education, Skills and Employment

NTSP Big Community Conversation questions and answers

Please see a list of the questions you can find below. Please scroll down to find the answers to each question.

1. Why aren’t scholar buses free for all children?

2. Is there a maintenance plan for schools, including new school developments?

3. Can school progression (catchment areas, two-tier vs three-tier systems) be made clearer for families?

4. When will Section 507B of the Education & Inspections Act 1996 be implemented to provide sufficient recreational activities for young people?

5. Why is Monkseaton High closing, and what will happen to the building?

6. Why does the council maintain both 2-tier and 3-tier systems, especially in Whitley Bay, despite falling birth rates and new housing?

7. What is being done to ensure enough school places, especially in oversubscribed areas like Backworth?

8. How will Whitley Bay three-tier schools ensure educational security for children?

9. How is the council managing schools under Ofsted investigation, low outstanding ratings, and support for families via EHAs?

10. How does the council ensure schools are financially and operationally well managed?

11. Why do so many children with SEND lack appropriate school places, and what is being done to address this?

12. Why is SEND support inconsistent between schools?

13. What SEND services exist for children transitioning from primary to secondary

14. Are more special schools or places planned, and how will EHCP students be supported long-term?

15. Why are SEN-friendly groups inaccessible to SEN children during school holidays?

16. How will the council improve work experience, volunteering, and summer job opportunities for young people?

17. What is being done to create jobs and advertise opportunities in North Tyneside?

18. How is the council supporting independent and small businesses, keeping rents reasonable, and improving amenities in areas like Whitley Bay and Cullercoats?

1. Why aren’t scholar buses free for all children?

North Tyneside Council is not responsible for operating scholar buses in the local area. To support school children to go to school from places where normal bus services do not operate, Nexus provides scholar buses. An ‘under 16 pop card’ or school pass can be purchased to access these services.

If children and young people are entitled to a school bus pass in line with the North Tyneside Council’s Home to School Transport Policy, they can use scholar buses free of charge. You can find the Home to School Transport policy here.

2. Is there a maintenance plan for schools, including new school developments?

There is a maintenance plan for schools. The Authority receives funding from the DFE for this purpose. For the 55 maintained schools currently in North Tyneside, there are two main sources of capital funding available from the DfE for maintenance/ refurbishments:

Devolved Formula Capital (DFC). This is paid direct to schools and ranges between £4k and £35k (driven by pupil numbers). The total this year was £614k for all of our maintained schools.
School Capital Allocation (SCA). This is paid to the Authority. For the current year the allocation is £4.3m. In line with DfE methodology, this is partially based on condition surveys and is paid to the Authority so it can undertake its statutory responsibilities for safe buildings etc.

In total therefore, North Tyneside has received just under £5m this year across the 55 maintained schools for building maintenance (an average of around £90,000 per school).

The authority consults with schools annually in relation to condition priorities for investment via the SCA budget. Plans are developing for the 25/26 investment round. This will be shared with schools during the autumn term 2025.

In addition to the above funds, the LA is set to benefit from investment via the Schools Rebuilding Programme. 4 schools are identified as entering the programme within the next two years, with a 5^th included following the identification of Reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC).

3. Can school progression (catchment areas, two-tier vs three-tier systems) be made clearer for families?

If you would like to know more about catchment areas in North Tyneside, you can find out more about them here.

North Tyneside Council publishes an Essential Guide each September, which provides information to parents and carers about how they can apply for their child’s next school place during the normal admissions round. You can find a copy of the Essential Guide here.

Where parents and carers would like their child to move schools outside of the normal admissions round, they can apply for any school, two tier or three tier, through an in year application. You can find out more about that here.

4. When will Section 507B of the Education & Inspections Act 1996 be implemented to provide sufficient recreational activities for young people?

North Tyneside has wide ranging facilities to support young people including leisure centres, libraries, parks, maintained open spaces which can be used for both recreational and educational leisure time activities. For our more vulnerable young people such as children in our care and young carers as well as children in some of our lower income families, the local authority supplies Ease cards to allow free or reduced cost access to our leisure centres, and these are well used by those groups. We work with a range of voluntary groups across the borough who provide leisure time activities and offer free use of our buildings where needed for activities to take place. Through grants we receive such as the Holidays Activities and Food and funding into the north west of the borough. We have funded groups to be delivered for young people. In addition, we deliver some specialist groups for children with SEND through a Youth Forum.

Work is commencing on pulling together the range of services and activities available into one place to demonstrate our ‘youth offer’.

5. Why is Monkseaton High closing, and what will happen to the building?

Following a full public consultation process, North Tyneside Council’s Cabinet made the decision to approve the closure of Monkseaton High School with effect from 31 August 2026. The closure of Monkseaton High School is considered necessary on the basis that it is no longer viable, due the number of surplus places and the financial position of the school. In addition, there are surplus places elsewhere in the local area, which can accommodate displaced pupils, and there is no predicted increase in demand for the school in the medium to long term. The school building and associated land is not in North Tyneside Council ownership, however the team at North Tyneside Council are currently working with the North Tyneside Learning Trust (NTLT) and the Department for Education (DfE) on the options regarding the future use of the building.

6. Why does the council maintain both 2-tier and 3-tier systems, especially in Whitley Bay, despite falling birth rates and new housing?

Schools and officers in North Tyneside have established and sustained an education system to be proud of. As a collaboration they strive to sustain improvement and improve outcomes for all children and young people. In recent Cabinet Reports the Authority has given a firm commitment to the three-tier system in the North East Planning Area (the Whitley Bay and Monkseaton area) and to working together with the schools to ensure it is viable and sustainable. Parents, the schools and the wider community have always demonstrated a commitment to maintaining the three-tier system.

The challenges and complexities around housing delivery have resulted in reduced build rates which are below the annual target identified in the Local plan. This, together with delays in the expected submission of applications is delaying the anticipated increase in pupil numbers. Also, new homes do not always mean new children of education age. Current projections show that the total number of pupils the development would bring remains lower than the current birth rate decline.

7. What is being done to ensure enough school places, especially in oversubscribed areas like Backworth?

Backworth is oversubscribed in Reception and Year 1 but there is enough surplus capacity in other local schools.

The Authority keeps under review the number of pupils attending each school and updates information each year about how many pupils are likely to be attending schools in the future. This is an important aspect of the Authority’s function in planning school places across the Borough to ensure there are schools of a suitable size to meet local requirements and to provide the best possible education for the pupils they serve.

The Authority monitors Planning Applications and the build out of new homes and evaluates the impact upon pupil numbers in areas of development and across the wider Borough. Birth rates and pupil movement are being monitored in the area to determine if, where and when additional capacity may be required. This will include ensuring that any existing provision within the Borough is forecast to have less than 10% / 5% surplus capacity, for Primary and Secondary schools respectively, prior to the introduction of additional capacity.

8. How will Whitley Bay three-tier schools ensure educational security for children?

The Authority is committed to ensuring that there is a sustainable, sufficient, and high-quality educational system in the planning area and has worked closely in partnership with the schools over many years to address the significant challenges faced.

The Authority has a statutory role to ensure there is sufficient school places for pupils who are residents of North Tyneside and this responsibility is a key consideration. While schools have agreed Published Admission Numbers (PAN) for their admissions, the capacity for each school to take further pupils is at the discretion of their Governing Board and is linked to the physical capacity of the school.

The Authority has a commitment for all children and young people to have the right to attend a school which provides continued and improving high quality provision for all children, where the number of pupils on the roll enables school leaders to provide a diverse curriculum and which is of an appropriate size for the Authority to fulfil its statutory responsibility regarding pupil places.

9. How is the council managing schools under Ofsted investigation, low outstanding ratings, and support for families via EHAs?

96% of our schools are judged to be good or outstanding.

Where a school has received an inadequate rating in an Ofsted inspection and an Academy order is issued, LA officers will work with schools and Academy teams to support and challenge the school. This in line with DfE guidance.

Early Help Assessments are completed by a range of partners, often coordinated by schools. Local Authority officers work to actively support this process.

Where we have a school which requires support and challenge it is managed through a Raising Achievement group run by Local Authority Officers or an Interim Executive Board to provide focussed challenge and support.

10. How does the council ensure schools are financially and operationally well managed?

The Governing Body is responsible for the sound financial administration of a school, and they must consider the extent to which they wish to delegate their financial powers to the Headteacher.

However, the Local Authority supports maintained schools in a variety of ways. Each school is required to prepare an annual budget plan and submit it to the LA by 31^st May. To facilitate budget planning the LA will supply to school’s budget guidelines and any key budget data required. The LA also requires financial forecasts against the budget plan, at 2 points during the year which are used to confirm schools are undertaking effective financial monitoring.

The “Scheme for Financing Schools” sets out the financial relationship between the authority and the maintained schools within North Tyneside. The scheme contains requirements in relation to financial management and associated issues.

11. Why do so many children with SEND lack appropriate school places, and what is being done to address this?

The vast majority of children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) are educated in the Borough’s local mainstream provision. In line with regional and national trends, there has been a growing number of children and young people who are educated within mainstream schools which have an Additionally Resourced Provisions (ARP) and SEN Unit. We also have a growing number of children who require a special school place.

The Council has worked hard with local schools to expand the number of ARP and SEN Unit places; in the last three years we have funded an additional 60 places, and we’re on track to fund another 80 places by 2028. The Council has also funded over 250 additional places in our local maintained Special Schools in the last five years.

12. Why is SEND support inconsistent between schools?

All schools should be delivering quality first teaching and targeted support for children with barriers to learning. Ofsted's renewed inspection framework has a strong focus on this. Schools will determine how they deliver this inclusive approach to meet the needs of different cohorts of learners.

The Local Authority has funded Whole School SEND Audits to identify best practise and areas to develop. 41 schools have taken part in this process and learning / good practice has been shared across them.

13. What SEND services exist for children transitioning from primary to secondary school?

We know that for some children and young people moving from one school to another can be a daunting time. Schools in the Borough work really hard to support children during this period, working with the school they will join, to make the transition as successful as it can be.

The Council provides an enhanced transitions offer for children where their current school feels that they would benefit from additional support to enable a successful move. Over 200 children accessed this offer in the 2024/25 academic year.

14. Are more special schools or places planned, and how will EHCP students be supported long-term?

There has been a growing number of children and young people who are educated within mainstream schools which have an Additionally Resourced Provisions (ARP) and SEN Unit. We also have a growing number of children who require a special school place.

15. Why are SEN-friendly groups inaccessible to SEN children during school holidays?

This is a broad question to answer. We run and facilitate a number of SEN activities (friendly and inclusive) across the holidays as part of the HAF offer. These are for children and young people with different needs. We know some provisions in the VCSE community do not run within the holiday period, but we would need to know more specifics from the question to answer that question.

The Local Offer has a ‘Things to do’ section which has details on of the full HAF offer and those in the VCSE. There is also information on what support is available for families.

16. How will the council improve work experience, volunteering, and summer job opportunities for young people?

The Department For Education guidance for work experience has recently been revised, secondary aged learners will now have access to 2 weeks of work-based learning. LA Officers are working with schools and employers to offer a wider range of opportunities to our young people.

17. What is being done to create jobs and advertise opportunities in North Tyneside?

The Authority works closely with our existing business community to encourage the creation of jobs and improve their resilience here in the Borough. This is done via our proactive work with our larger employers and The Business Factory (Link here - Home - The Business Factory) which provides direct support to businesses but also helps to signpost and refer businesses into key programmes delivered by partners and stakeholders to enable their growth and development.

An element of this support is making sure businesses have access to skills and residents can take advantage of these opportunities. Support for recruitment and training is offered through the Councils skills and employment team and through our further education facilities.

18. How is the council supporting independent and small businesses, keeping rents reasonable, and improving amenities in areas like Whitley Bay and Cullercoats?

The Authority offers proactive support to businesses via The Business Factory programme, (link here https://businessfactorynt.co.uk/) This includes access to a number of different support schemes including access to finance, energy audits and retrofit grants. It also offers directly start up grants for new businesses and fully funded flexible consultancy programme to help business unlock growth. In addition, the scheme provides a pop-up shop in North Shields and Wallsend to encourage footfall and support new start retail businesses, and a shop front grant scheme to improve the look and feel of town centres and support businesses with the cost. The Business Forum is led by local businesses providing a supportive peer to peer network to local businesses. The Council provide a support to the Forum to make sure they can operate effectively.

Rents are informed by the commercial market so the Authority is unable to influence the private sector but making sure businesses can operate effectively with reasonable overheads is always a key consideration.

Work is currently ongoing to understand opportunities along the Coast linked to the new cycle way and our natural assets but in the meantime hospitality businesses can get involved in initiatives and events like Restaurant Week which is scheduled to start on the 6 October.