Policy paper

Opportunity areas

The delivery plans and learnings for the opportunity areas place-based programme, which supports social mobility in areas facing entrenched deprivation.

Applies to England

Documents

Blackpool opportunity area: delivery plan

Bradford opportunity area: delivery plan

Derby opportunity area: delivery plan

Doncaster opportunity area: delivery plan

Fenland and East Cambridgeshire opportunity area: delivery plan

Hastings opportunity area: delivery plan

Ipswich opportunity area: delivery plan

North Yorkshire Coast opportunity area: delivery plan

Norwich opportunity area: delivery plan

Oldham opportunity area: delivery plan

Stoke-on-Trent opportunity area: delivery plan

West Somerset opportunity area: delivery plan

Opportunity areas selection data

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Details

Opportunity areas programme

Opportunity areas (OAs) are an important part of the government’s plan for improving social mobility through education. They were described in the policy paper Unlocking Talent, Fulfilling Potential.

From September 2022, the opportunity areas programme will end and the areas will become 12 of the 24 priority education investment areas. The Schools White Paper, Opportunity for all, announced new interventions for these areas which will help our mission to level up and improve educational attainment, with a focus on making the greatest progress in the areas with the most entrenched underperformance.

The 12 opportunity areas are:

Delivery plans

The delivery plans for the 12 opportunity areas outline how we planned to build young people’s knowledge and skills and provide them with the best advice and opportunities.

Selection methodology

The selection methodology explains how we decided which areas would be classified as ‘opportunity areas’.

The selection data spreadsheet presents the data which we originally considered when identifying the areas in greatest need.

Lessons learnt

One of the main objectives of the OA programme was to share learning from the OAs to inform future policy as well as activity in other areas.

Lessons learnt can be found in:

Published 9 October 2017
Last updated 26 May 2022 + show all updates
  1. Updated to include information about lessons learnt.

  2. Updated with details of the opportunity areas insight guides.

  3. Added links to websites for Norwich, Blackpool, Bradford and Doncaster.

  4. Added links to the pages for West Somerset, Derby, Oldham, Fenland and East Cambridgeshire and Ipswich.

  5. Added a link to the North Yorkshire coast website.

  6. Added 6 new opportunity area delivery plans.

  7. Norwich: updated missing information on Dr. Tim Coulson, Chair of the Norwich partnership board on page 15. Blackpool: amended the graph showing the percentage of pupils in schools by Ofsted rating (January 2017) on page 20.

  8. First published.