Priority b) Education and skills: High quality skills and learning for all
We've taken action to provide opportunities from early years to adult education.
Supporting children and young people
We were delighted to achieve the milestone of 50,000 free school meals served as part of the York Hungry Minds initiative in July. This scheme has seen three schools in York, first as a pilot and more recently as part of a planned rollout, offering free school meals to children who really benefit from a nutritious start to their day.
The SEND Hub, SEND Central had a formal opening in September. This will be a flagship Family Hub for young people with SEND aged 0 to 25 years and their families. Everyone will be welcome to pop in and access information, advice, be signposted to additional support, or find out more about the Local Offer, whether or not their child has an Education, Health and Care Plan.
September 2025 saw the publication of the new Ofsted Education Inspection Framework and we await publication of the Schools White Paper in the autumn. Both will focus on the importance of inclusive mainstream education. York has one of the lowest levels of permanent exclusions in Yorkshire and Humber and the consistent delivery of inclusive mainstream education is a priority for the York Schools and Academies Board in the academic year 2025 to 2026.
York’s Early Years Foundation Stage outcomes continue to be above the national average with 70% of five-year-olds achieving a good level of development (68% nationally).
Skills for Life
We've worked with partners, including the York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority, on the development of the Get Britain Working Trailblazer programme, including a Work and Skills Interchange. The Interchange will offer advice and make connections for people seeking work or trying to stay in work. The focus is on supporting people who have significant health conditions and are economically inactive.
The David Forbes-Nixon Charitable Foundation’s Project Search internships at Aviva, York College and the City of York Council saw four out of five interns progress on to employment. The programme will be expanded in 2025 to 2026 to include internships provided by us and LNER and six new internships will start in September.
We continue to work with York’s Construction Skills Partnership on shared skills and employment priorities – raising the profile of the sector, providing opportunities for York’s current and future workforce to develop relevant skills and experience, and connecting individuals into good jobs with local employers.
We continue to promote routes into social care and raise awareness around the skills needed to enter this workforce. We offer level 2 and level 3 fully funded (where eligible) programmes in adult social care and around 15% of these learners also go on to a level 4 or level 5 qualification in adult social care.
Our aim to increase knowledge of transferable skills has been embedded right across York adult learning, 16 to 18-year-olds and our SEND offer. This is about learners understanding how their skills and experiences transfer into different jobs. When asked, ‘What are your transferable skills?’ 71% of learners can now articulate this.
We have seen an increase in participation in careers information, advice and guidance (in 2023 to 2024 this was at 45% and has increased to 53% in 2024 to 2025), meaning that more people are accessing information on options to improve their personal economic opportunities.
As part of our boot camp provision, one of our accountancy courses aimed at those who were currently not in employment has delivered 88% course completion and half of these learners have been offered paid employment within the financial sector.
We delivered successful work in supporting pathways into careers in childcare and supporting employers in the sector to be ready for the Government expansion of free hours funding.
York Learning was awarded a ‘Good’ rating in their latest Ofsted inspection, which took place in December 2024. The report highlighted how tutors appreciate the barriers that many learners and apprentices face in their lives and are proactive in providing support while promoting high expectations.
We continue to work with York Central developers and the wider Construction Skills Partnership on the potential for a Construction Skills Centre in the city, taking into account the findings of a feasibility study (funded by UK government) that was completed earlier this year.
What we plan to do over the next three months
We are working closely with head teachers across academy trusts and maintained schools to develop a schools poverty framework that will help support schools and their associated communities to better support children and young people living in poverty.
We are expanding the York Hungry Minds free school meals offer and developing fundraising capacity to support this work.
We will be welcoming our first drop-in visitors to the SEND Central hub and developing the visibility of this service right across the city.
Making a positive difference
The number of free school meal-eligible children who took a free school meal on Census Day was 3,278 in January 2025, compared to 3,289 in January 2024.
The percentage of the working-age population qualified to at least level 2 and above was 93.3% in 2024 to 2025, compared to 90% in 2023 to 2024 and the national benchmark of 86.7%.
The percentage of the working-age population qualified to at least level 4 and above was 59.6% in 2024 to 2025, compared to 53.8% in 2023 to 2024 and the national benchmark of 47.6%.