Oral Answers to Questions

Andrew Bridgen Excerpts

Monday 17th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nadhim Zahawi]

This is new money—£250 million plus £100 million for capital spending—from the underspend in the Department. The additional funding will help local authorities and schools with the increasing costs of provision for some of our most vulnerable children and young people. I think it is a shame that the Opposition are scaremongering in this way with the most vulnerable families in our society.

[Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to raise standards in secondary schools.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

The dedication of teachers along with our reforms has seen the proportion of good or outstanding secondary schools increase from 64% to 75%, in terms of the pupils in them, between 2010 and 2018.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Unlike the vast majority of senior schools, most of my constituency still operates a middle and upper school system. Does my right hon. Friend agree that the all-through education model is better for raising standards and preferable to pupils having to move school only five terms before they take their GCSE exams? Will he do everything in his power to assist schools in North West Leicestershire that want to transition to the 11-to-16 model?