Jayne Dowle: How George Osborne has lost direction in the North

As the mother of two children – one at primary school, one in a secondary academy – it’s not that I’m not grateful.

It’s just that it’s one of the most wrong-headed initiatives to hit education since somebody thought that Michael Gove might make a decent Secretary of State.

When I was at school, I was taught that when writing an essay the first thing you must do is define your terms.

So when George Osborne stands there in the House of Commons and says – “we’re going to focus on the performance of schools in the North, where results have not been as strong as we’d like” – what is he actually talking about?

What “North”? Where? Does he not understand that the “north” of inner-city south Leeds is a very different “north” from a rural constituency with pupils scattered far and wide?

Our region alone proves that the North is not one big homogenous place where all youngsters share the same challenges. We’re talking about thousands of square miles, with such a wide range of individuals, families and communities it is impossible to generalise.

Mind you, what else should we expect from a Chancellor who has become so fixated on the idea of a Northern Powerhouse that he literally can’t see the wood for the trees?

Nowhere in his Budget speech did he make it explicit that he is investing in schools because if this place called the North of England is to compete on equal terms with the South, it needs a better-educated population. That’s another thing I was taught about essays; develop a coherent argument and use your examples to illustrate the point you are trying to make.

Osborne though thinks that if he says Northern Powerhouse enough times, it will somehow appear. What he has failed to realise – notably with business and the arts – is that transforming the North is a much more complex process than a PR exercise and a love-in with Manchester.

Of course I want the best chances for my children. What parent wouldn’t?

I don’t, though, want them to become part of some patronising experiment which was never rooted in reality.

He has appointed Sir Nick Weller, the head of the Bradford-based chain of Dixons Academies to deliver a report in around six months’ time. I wish Sir Nick luck with his task. And I hope that he looks beyond the exam results and the classroom test scores and tells the Chancellor how it really is.

I wouldn’t presume to speak for every school in a line from Lincolnshire up to the Borders. However, I do know what the major barriers to educational progress in my own part of the north are. In South Yorkshire, top of the list is poor teacher recruitment and retention.

There simply aren’t enough good teachers to go round. For a start, I’d like to see graduates from our regional universities encouraged to take their skills back into the communities they come from and live in.

As the languages teacher at my son’s school proves – he’s a working class lad from Middlesbrough, fluent in French, German and Spanish – these young professionals make inspiring role models.

I’d also like parents to wake up and get with the programme. These days, there is no excuse for not knowing or understanding what your child is doing in class. There is also no excuse for self-limiting their horizons by never talking to them about their ambitions, watching nothing on TV except trash and generally giving them no sense of aspiration.

Clearly, the Chancellor has looked at London and thinks the same thing can happen up North. When I lived in the capital in the 1990s, people were despairing; in so many boroughs, local schools were woefully under-performing, bereft of decent teaching staff and in some cases, downright dangerous places to be. Parents – including me – were fleeing to find better education.

However, a combination of improvements has turned this situation on its head. These include London Challenge, which provided targeted support and advice for schools, the growth of academies, improved support for local authorities and the impact of Teach First, a scheme which recruits the best young graduates to teach in disadvantaged schools.

However, what Mr Osborne must remember is that what works in London is not a blueprint for the rest of the country. In London, there is one crucial quality which we lack up here. And that is confidence. Youngsters in London schools see the economy booming around them, know that there is literally full employment in the capital, and understand that hard work is pretty much guaranteed to bring you success.

For too long though now, the confidence has been knocked out of the North, thanks to the decimation of traditional industries, low-skill economies, sub-standard transport and that pervading feeling that we’ve long been second best. It’s going to take more than a donation of £20m a year from George Osborne to bring it back.