Thurrock Trailblazer Evaluation 2015/16

The Thurrock Landscape
Thurrock is a unitary authority area with borough status. It is part of the
London commuter belt and an area of regeneration within the Thames
Gateway redevelopment zone - a corridor of opportunity that has been
identified by central government as the area with greatest development
and commercial potential in the country. The metropolitan
greenbelt covers 70% of the borough. There are seven conservation areas,
19 scheduled ancient monuments and 239 listed buildings. The borough
contains ten sites of special scientific interest.
Thurrock offers great opportunity, but also challenges for the children and
young people growing up in the area.
In terms of the index of multiple deprivation decile rank of deprivation of
Lower Super Output Area (LSOA), Thurrock is ranked 111 out of 326 Local
Authorities with an Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD) decile of four (one
being the highest, ten the lowest). Within the Trailblazer schools, the IMD
decile average is 5.4. However, within this is a wide variation – Gateway
Primary, Tilbury Pioneer and Lansdowne Primary are amongst the top 10%
most deprived neighbourhoods in the country.
The number of children receiving Free School Meals in the Trailblazer
schools is higher than the national average, the number speaking English
as a second language is lower.
Thurrock has a growing ‘churn’ of children, with increasing numbers of
looked after children and asylum seeking children passing through the
borough. 123 unaccompanied asylum seekers entered Thurrock between
April 2015-2016.
Thurrock has more schools judged to require improvement than the
national average, and fewer judged to be outstanding. All statistical
neighbours apart from Dudley have a greater percentage of outstanding
and good schools. At the date of last inspection, of the Thurrock schools,
three schools were judged to ‘Require Improvement’, one ‘Inadequate’ and
five ‘Outstanding’. Schools are improving, the three-year trend is positive.
Source: Schools, pupils and their characteristics: January 2015; English
indices of deprivation 2015 DFE publications.
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