Labour’s Wes Streeting will today call for deprived areas to be supported to develop their own home-grown teaching talent.

The shadow schools minister will also call on the government to do more to attract the “very best” teachers, support staff and leaders into schools in the most disadvantaged communities.

In a speech to the Northern Powerhouse Partnership’s Education Summit later today, he will say: “We should be working to recruit and develop home-grown talent within those communities” and says this is something which the training provider Teach First is “increasingly thinking about”.

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Mr Streeting is also expected to criticise the government’s “tunnel vision” in education for failing to help children in deprived areas.

And he will warn that Opportunity Areas designed to boost social mobility are “not up to the scale of the challenge” the country faces.

He will say: “For all the talk of levelling up, there is still a postcode lottery in England today.

“We are seeing more children experiencing deeper disadvantage and poorer life chances, disproportionately concentrated in the North of England.

“This isn’t levelling up. It’s levelling down the prospects for kids across the North and the communities they’re growing up in. Place matters.”

Talking about the importance of recruitment in schools in disadvantaged areas Mr Streeting will say: “All the evidence shows that, if we want to make the most difference to children’s life chances and opportunities, and close the attainment gap, investing in teaching, more teaching and high-quality teaching is the best way to do it.

“That means recruiting the very best teachers we can, investing in their ongoing professional development and empowering them as professionals to drive school improvement.

“We should be trying to attract the very best, experienced, teachers, support staff and school leaders into schools serving the most disadvantaged communities and we should also be working to recruit and develop home-grown talent within those communities, something that I know Teach First is increasingly thinking about.” 

The speech will also focus on Opportunity Areas, which were created in 2016 by former education secretary Justine Greening.

These areas look to improve social mobility through education based on a partnership between the Department for Education and local education providers and leaders.

Twelve areas of the country where social mobility was a concern were selected.

Mr Streeting will say: “Opportunity Areas are the government’s answer to this challenge and, while there are some fantastic people involved in them, they’re simply not up to the scale of the challenge.

“Their focus and funding is too short term and there are far more than 12 areas in need.

“But, fundamentally, the government isn’t thinking ambitiously enough, or long-term enough, about how the fortunes of towns and communities are tied into educational outcomes and vice versa.

“The government’s tunnel vision approach to education - which often ignores the wider contextual factors at play - risks failing children in some of the country’s most disadvantaged communities.

“Children in these areas are fighting a battle on multiple fronts: poor health, high crime, a lack of good quality jobs for when they leave school.

“Many young people are trapped in a vicious cycle where their opportunities are limited simply because of where they were born.”

The Northern Powerhouse Partnership has called for the scope of Opportunity Areas to be extended beyond education.

Sarah Mulholland, head of policy at the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, said: “We need to recognise that school interventions alone will not solve the underlying issues at the root of the education disadvantage gap.

“Children are facing a barrage of interdependent place-based problems, all of which impact on education and so from housing to health must be included when intervening.

“A one-size-fits-all approach simply won’t work. The clear regional disparities we see in the data mean that we need a tailored, Metro Mayor-driven approach for a new wave and transformed existing Opportunity Areas to be truly effective.”