Teachers in Nottingham will be offered up to £3,000 a year as part of the Government's Levelling-Up plans for the area.
On Wednesday, February 3 Levelling Up secretary Michael Gove unveiled the Government's plans to bridge the gap between the rich and poor areas of the country.
Within the 300-page white paper it was revealed Nottinghamshire was one of 55 places to be designated an 'education investment area'.
The Government has pledged targeted support and funding for these areas which have been described as "cold spots" due to poor school outcomes.
But what does this mean, exactly?
Nottinghamshire Live's Agenda Editor Joseph Locker sat down with education and universities minister, Michelle Donelan, to discuss the plans.
One of the most notable and tangible policy decisions is a £3,000 teacher retention scheme, but it isn't one that is entirely new.
A similar scheme was proposed back in 2019 and subsequently scrapped, but it has made a resurgence in the white paper released this week.
The premium will be worth up to £3,000, tax-free, for maths, physics, chemistry and computing teachers in years one to five of their careers.
Teachers will be able to claim a payment of up to £3,000 each year from the academic year 2022/23 through to 2024/25.
Ms Donelan, who grew up Whitley, Cheshire and now represents the Chippenham constituency, said: "The community I came from I saw the same, where opportunities were limited and there weren't the role models, there weren't the examples there for people to see and go on to achieve.
"I would argue the Levelling Up paper we released this week and nothing has ever been done like this before by a Government. This really targets cold spots that have been left behind by successive governments over the decades.
"And it does it by a variety of different initiatives because there is no one cure. When we all look back at our education one of the key things that stands out are those phenomenal teachers that made you want to go that extra mile."
The papers also detailed plans to bring failing schools up to a better standard.
Any school given a rating below 'good' by Ofsted will be placed into a multi-academy trust, a move which has before been criticised in the past.
There will also be a more targeted approach to making sure education links in with employment, with a focus on apprenticeships and T-levels in higher education options.
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Ms Donelan was in Nottingham to speak to students at Nottingham Trent University who were on an apprenticeship-based course at the time of the interview.
She added: "They were saying how it is a far better opportunity for them than doing a standard degree and that's something we want more universities to do, working closer with businesses. That's at the heart of our reforms is getting that link between education and business because we need the skills to be fit for purpose.
"In essence it means this is one of the 55 areas we have selected which doesn't have good enough school outcomes and as a government we are saying we want to lift standards and give the young people in these areas the same life chances as they may have in areas like what I represent, which has better outcome data.
"And we will do that through a variety of mechanisms, including the retention fund, but also making sure we move schools that are failing into as multi-academy trust which is a tried and tested evidence-based model that can lift up those standards. And we would pump extra resources in.
"The regional school commissioner's job will be to work with those trusts and assist with that. It may be a problem with leadership, it may be a problem with what schools are in that mix, but the evidence does show overall it is a good model. But it is not the panacea."
It is not yet known what the "extra resources" are or how much schools across Nottinghamshire will get in terms of investment.
"All of this will be fleshed out with much more detail," Ms Donelan added.
Education unions have hit out at the white paper.
Dr Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union, says the strategy "does not provide sensible solutions to the lack of school and college funding, nor the exam factory culture".
She said: "Their answers of ten years ago, such as free schools and academies being the panacea to educational achievement, have proven not in themselves to be the answer that children, families, teachers, leaders and support staff need today.
"With funding levels currently at the levels of 2010, many schools and colleges are running on empty. This is a shocking situation.
"It is hard to see how schools will be able to achieve the targets set out without addressing the fundamental question of insufficient resources."
