Giving children a better start at school and cutting exclusions by two thirds will be priorities for a scheme hoping to tackle disadvantage in Norwich.
The fine city was chosen as one of the government's six opportunity areas last October after it came 323rd out of 324 districts for social mobility - a measure of how someone improves their life chances - making parts of Norwich some of the most deprived in the country.
On Monday, after a year of little detail, the government set out key targets for the scheme - which has £6m of funding attached - to be met by 2020/21.
They include:
• Cut the rate of permanent and fixed exclusions by two thirds
• Get 40pc of young people in Norwich into higher education or a higher level apprenticeship
• Halve the attainment gap between disadvantaged and all pupils
• Put attainment at key stages two and four into the top half of all local authorities
The targets fit into four Norwich priorities - improve early years skills, raise attainment through training and support for teachers, support children at risk of exclusion and help young people move from education to work.
MORE: Social mobility - how a new initiative improve life chances for Norwich's deprived young people
Work will include creating more nursery places, forming a coalition of schools to focus on early years, funding projects to improve attainment, particularly in maths, training teachers on behaviour and, in November, launching research into what is behind high exclusion rates.
Brian Conway, head of Notre Dame High, is a member of a newly-founded partnership board to oversee the work. He said: 'The area has the potential to fundamentally improve outcomes for disadvantaged children across the city. It is exciting to see the combined energies of so many schools, colleges and organisations that work with young people focused on this goal - together we are going to make a difference.'
The Department for Education (DfE) also said all secondary school pupils will have access to at least four 'high-quality' work experiences.
Four employers - Aviva, Adecco, Grant Thornton and PWC - will be brought in to help, but Salena Dawson, Federation of Small Businesses East Anglia chairman, said it was 'critical' small businesses, 'great engines of social mobility', were involved too.
Penny Carpenter, children's services committee chairman at Norfolk County Council, said the scheme offered the 'added impetus and investment' to drive up aspirations and skills.
The DfE has four partner bodies in the scheme - Careers and Enterprise Company, National Citizen Service, Education Endowment Foundation and Network for East Anglian Collaborative Research.
Who is on the partnership board?
• Tim Coulson - chairman of the board. Also former regional schools commissioner for the area and chief executive of a Suffolk academy trust
• Adrian Ball - director of schools, Inspiration Trust
• Alan Hopley - chief executive, Voluntary Norfolk
• Binks Neate-Evans - chairman, Norfolk Primary Heads Forum and headteacher, West Earlham Infant School
• Chris Snudden - assistant director of children's services, Norfolk County Council
• Chris Starkie - managing director, New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership
• Corrienne Peasgood - principal, City College Norwich
• Natalie Cramp - chief operating officer, Careers and Enterprise Company
• Nicole McCartney - managing director east, Ormiston Academies Trust
• Professor Richard Andrews - head of the school of education, University of East Anglia
• Stephanie Beavis - assurance director and head of public sector, KPMG East Anglia
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