The city has appointed former education minister Stephen Twigg as the chair of its Liverpool Challenge, which it expects to run for at least four years, including a specific focus on mathematics.
The London Challenge was launched in 2003 in a bid to tackle poor examination outcomes and support challenging schools across the capital.
The scheme was based on collaboration between schools facing similar challenges, a detailed use of data, and a focus on raising the quality of school leadership and teaching and learning. By 2010, London had a higher proportion of good and outstanding schools than any other area of England.
Sir Mike Tomlinson, former chief inspector and former advisor to the London Challenge, has put the initiative’s success down to the combination of additional funding, expert support and its simple moral objective.
The Liverpool launch comes after the Blackpool Challenge, aimed at raising aspirations and driving pupil progress across the city, was unveiled in June last year. It is being led by Sonia Blandford, professor of education and social enterprise at University College London’s Institute of Education.
At the launch in Liverpool last week, Mr Twigg, who was Labour’s minister for London schools from 2002 to 2005 during the time of the London Challenge, said: “I am absolutely delighted to be chairing the Liverpool Challenge and am confident that my experience in government and working in the capital leading the hugely successful London Challenge will help drive further improvements here.
“This is about building on our success and spreading it further and wider throughout the education system in Liverpool, working in partnership with universities and employers.”
More details of how the scheme will operate have not been unveiled, but the city council’s cabinet member for education, employment and skills, Nick Small, highlighted the importance of skills and transition.
He said: “We need to make sure pupils are supported properly in the transition between primary, secondary and sixth form education and to ensure that we are giving them the skills to enable them to get into the jobs where we know there will be growth in the future.”