I had a brilliant start to day visiting Quernmore VC EC Primary School today. The children told me their favourite things about their lovely school and gave me some great suggestions for questions to ask the Prime Minister.

Rural schools like Quernmore provide such nurturing environments for children and this is thanks to their teachers who go above and beyond, often doing several jobs at once. Mrs Richardson, the schools headteacher serves dinners, teaches a lot of maths, supervises playtimes and does breakfast and afterschool clubs. This is on top of all of her other duties!

Like all schools, budgets are tight and headteachers like Mrs Richardson at Quernmore are working incredibly hard to make ends meet so that the impact isn’t felt by the children. Though she is doing an amazing job, teaching shouldn’t be this difficult, and rural schools especially need more support, which I will be raising with the Department for Education next week.

Thanks so much for having me this morning and see you all again soon!