Education: School Leavers

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s expertise in this subject and to her support for PSHE, which I know is widely shared around this Chamber. It is true that we have not yet announced the outcomes from the PHSE review, which has been extended to take account of the review of the national curriculum. Perhaps I may reassure the noble Baroness by saying that, in its latest report, Ofsted said that 75% of the schools it visited were providing good or outstanding PSHE education. Therefore, although it is not statutory, that figure is encouraging. However, we shall of course be monitoring the situation.

[Baroness Brinton]

My Lords, we are constantly told that we are short of engineers in this country. CBI director-general John Cridland has said:

“Businesses have traditionally focused on education at 14 plus, but it’s clear we need to tackle problems earlier, instead of applying a sticking plaster later on”.

What are the Government doing to encourage exciting and vibrant maths and science teaching at primary schools, particularly those with lower attainment levels?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My noble friend picks up a very important point from the report, and it was encouraging to see that now almost one in five maths graduates is choosing to go into teaching. Among the initiatives going on, I highlight one under which eight universities are delivering the two-year master’s-level mathematic specialist teacher programmes, which aim to improve the practice and efficiency of primary maths teaching by upskilling existing teachers who in turn train their colleagues. This year, our funding for that programme alone amounts to £2 million.