Thurrock Council has found continued investment for improving education standards across the borough.

Council Leader, Cllr John Kent, told Wednesday (27 February) evening’s meeting that education was “this council’s priority; the one overriding issue that we have to get right, for us, for our children and for the whole borough’s future.”

He said: “We have often said we want every school in Thurrock to be classed as “good” or better by Ofsted and I can say tonight that five are currently classed ‘outstanding’ and 20 ‘good’, including four – Bulphan, Orsett, Deneholm and Graham James – that have moved from ‘satisfactory’ to ‘good’ in the last few months since Ofsted introduced its new tougher regime.

“We all know this is just a start and that is why I can say that over the next three years we are redoubling our efforts and will be investing a million pounds of our hard won reserves in supporting all our schools in reaching their ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ goal; making sure they have the resources they need to continue on their improvement journeys.”

He added: “We will also take £100,000 from reserves to support efforts to help the young unemployed in our borough the so-called NEETs.

“It is important we play our full part, with partners, in doing all we can to help these youngsters find training or a job.

“It is easy to forget that statistics are hiding fact real people facing real problems, let alone a dreadful waste of talent we can all ill afford.”