Schools: Bullying

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden]

Can my noble friend tell the House what the Government are doing to ensure that children in alternative provision have support and education to a standard that is on a par with that in mainstream schools?

[Lord Nash]

We are focusing intensely on alternative provision providers. This Government have sent a very clear message that we expect alternative provision education to be equivalent to that in mainstream schools. There is no doubt that alternative provision in this country is extremely erratic. I am delighted to see that we have a number of alternative provision providers coming through in the new free school applications, and I expect that a number of them will be approved. A number of alternative provision providers are converting to academies. We have some excellent alternative provision providers. We have also asked Ofsted to look specifically at alternative provision through a thematic inspection process.