Lord Lexden
Main Page: Lord Lexden (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Lexden's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years ago)
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Lord Nash
This is to bring free schools in line with all other new schools, which are inspected in their third year in the same way. Of course, free schools are monitored closely by education advisers in their early years and, as I already said, by the regional schools commissioners.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Is the free schools programme helping to improve social justice and boost social mobility in our most deprived areas?
Lord Nash
There is no question that that is the case. About half of free schools are in the most deprived areas in the country. In the last five rounds, 93% of them have been in areas where there was a forecast shortage of places and a large number of our top academy sponsors, who are particularly focused on underprivileged children, have entered the free school movement.