Universities Minister Backs Our Local Scholarship Scheme

David Willetts MP (right) with Cllrs Royston Smith, David Fuller, Matthew Claisse 

and Portswood Candidate Linda Norris

We were very pleased to welcome Universities Minister, David Willetts, to Southampton at the weekend to officially give his seal of approval to our ambitious new University Scholarship Scheme.

The new scheme is targeted at young people on low incomes progressing to higher education and is partnership between Southampton City Council, Southampton Solent University and the University of Southampton.

The scheme offers practical help in the form of fee waivers and bursaries. Eligible young people will be Southampton residents, have a household income of below £20,000, and attending Foundation degrees either Southampton Solent University or the University of Southampton. 

Both Universities will offer fee waivers in line with newly negotiated admissions policies costing each institution around £100,000. The Council funding will provide £45,000 p.a to each of the universities for bursaries for initially a total of 45 young people to support learning materials, travel and subsistence.

It was superb to receiving the backing of Mr Willetts who was full of praise for the initiative!

State Of The Art New Sports Facilities At Test Playing Fields

The layout for the new sports facility at Test Playing Fields (click to enlarge)

The Conservative Council is pushing ahead with plans to build state of the art new sports facilities at Test Playing Fields (off Lower Brownhill Road). This will be delivered in partnership with Southampton Solent University and the Football Foundation.

The new community facilities will include a synthetic turf pitch, a Multi User Games Area and associated changing rooms and parking. Holy Family Roman Catholic Primary will benefit from free time tabled use of the Multi User Games Area.

I was pleased to agree the Solent University lease on Monday. The City Council already has a superb sports partnership with Solent, where their students run extra hours of sport for children on the west of the city. The next step is this fantastic new facility which will benefit the local community and nearby schools.

After School Sports Launch

Southampton's new after school sports programme was officially launched today at Upper Shirley High School on Friday.

This unique scheme is a partnership between Southampton schools, Southampton Solent University (SSU) and Southampton City Council.
5 schools are taking part in the pilot programme which will see SSU sports undergraduates running after school sports for local children.

Tailored sports programmes are now up and running in Redbridge Secondary School, Upper Shirley High, Highfield Primary School, St Marks CofE Junior School and Bevois Town Primary School. 9 more schools are ready to join the scheme in a second wave next year.

It is hoped that the scheme will then be rolled out across Southampton. This could see over 1000 university students volunteering to help in the city.

On Friday I met with SSU students and lecturers and pupils at Upper Shirley High and spoke with headteacher Cassie Ellins and her staff about the new scheme. At Upper Shirley High pupils will be taking up basketball, cricket and football classes. This scheme will be school led and tailored to meet the needs of pupils.

I believe that this scheme is going to be tremendous. It is fantastic timing – the start of a new term, off the back of the Beijing Olympics and preparing for 2012 in London.

We are lucky for to be teaming up with the premier sporting institution in the south. The scheme is not just about sport. Its about health, fitness, team work, it gives children plenty to do, and will help university students with their development. I am also confident that it will be a catalyst to boost sports clubs in the city.

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Extended Schools

This evening I went to a school governor training session at Mount Pleasant Junior School, on subject of the Extended Schools agenda.

All schools will have to have an extended schools programme in place by 2010 and in Southampton, schools will be expected to group together in clusters to deliver this.

It will involve all children being offered activities or child care provision from 8am in the morning till 6pm in the evening in the form of a wrap around scheme to the school timetable.

This is a subject which I am very interested in and it was the subject of my motion to full council last week. Schools are expected to work with other bodies in the city to deliver the programme and I have been strongly pushing for the city council to take up the offer made by Southampton Solent University use its 1,500 sports undergraduates to teach sports classes in city schools.

In the end my motion to council wasn't carried and Labour and Lib Dem councillors decided not to push ahead with the scheme and not to commit funding for a pilot. They did say that it was worth investigating but they in effect neutered the proposal by taking out the money and a deadline for implementation.

I am still confident that in time the scheme will get off the ground as its such as fantastic opportunity for the city.