Ofsted: Annual Report 2012-13

Baroness Hughes of Stretford Excerpts

Wednesday 8th January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes a good point, and I am grateful to her for her work as chair of Ofsted. There are two lessons from the point she made. One is that school-to-school support is the key model. We are focusing the academy programme on a regional, school-to-school cluster basis—whether that involves national chains operating regionally or local schools supporting local schools. Those are the absolute key things that we learn from the London Challenge and the academy focus. It has to be done on a local basis.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford (Lab)]

My Lords, at the same time as publishing his report the inspector also said that grammar schools are acting as a brake on social mobility and there should be no more of them. Do the Government agree with that as well?

[Lord Nash]

The Government are prepared to approve expansion of grammar schools but we are not in favour of new grammar schools.