Polly has today welcomed a major campaign victory after the Government formally adopted her call for a targeted education programme to improve outcomes for young people in coastal communities.
The announcement came this week in the Government’s Schools White Paper, which confirmed the launch of Mission Coastal – a new initiative aimed at tackling entrenched disadvantage in seaside towns and boosting educational opportunity for children growing up by the coast.
The announcement follows a campaign launched by Polly at last year’s Labour Party Conference, where she called for “Coastal Challenge”, modelled on the successful London Challenge that transformed school standards and life chances for young people across the capital.
Polly chairs the Coastal Parliamentary Labour Party (Coastal PLP), a grouping of 66 Labour MPs representing coastal areas who campaign for government action to transform the lives of communities living on the coast.
Mission Coastal will focus on improving outcomes for young people in disadvantaged coastal areas, where opportunity is often limited by geography, fragile local infrastructure, poor transport links and the compounding effects of deprivation. The programme will work with schools, academy trusts, and local partners to tackle barriers to learning and strengthen the conditions that allow young people to thrive.
Central to the initiative will be collaboration, with new local partnership boards bringing together teachers, school leaders, councils and community representatives. Where challenges such as low parental engagement persist, Mission Coastal will take a “test, learn and grow” approach – building evidence of what works and scaling up successful practice.
Commenting on the announcement, Polly said:
“Coastal towns like ours in Thanet face unique challenges that have gone unrecognised in Westminster for too long, with our young people facing worse educational outcomes despite their enormous talent and potential.
In the 1990s, London’s young people were written off as a lost cause, but the last Labour government ignored the pessimists and launched the London Challenge, transforming schools and whole communities in the process. I’m absolutely delighted that the government has this week adopted my policy of a programme for coastal areas that will deliver the same transformative impact.
Mission Coastal shows this Government has the same ambition for young people living in coastal areas as New Labour did for London’s young people. That’s the kind of determination and vision needed to deliver a decade of renewal and opportunity for young people in areas like Thanet that have been neglected for too long.”