Children and Families Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Cormack]

Will my noble friend amplify that point? He very kindly said that he would be glad to convene a meeting to discuss this appalling problem of the internet. Could he give reasonable notice of that meeting and try to convene it as soon as is reasonably possible?

[Baroness Warnock (CB)]

Can the Minister answer the point made by my noble friend Lord Listowel about the ways in which teacher training could concentrate on this area that I roughly think of as moral teaching? There is no requirement that this should be taught in any particular way. I quite agree with the noble Lord about the futility of making lists but the point is that teacher training does not concentrate sufficiently on it simply because it is not part of the national curriculum. Can he say what he thinks about my noble friend’s point?

[Lord Nash]

We have great concerns about the quality of teacher training in this country, which is one of the reasons why, frankly, we do not think qualified teacher status is essential. If teachers were trained for many years, like doctors, vets or lawyers, it might be different, but they are not. In ITT colleges, somewhere between one-half and two-thirds of training is in schools. We are expanding in-school training and have substantially beefed up, for instance, behaviour management training. I will look at this and write to the noble Baroness, as well as talk to Charlie Taylor about what more we can do in this regard.