Education: Secondary Schools
Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
My Lords, on behalf of my noble friend Lady Massey of Darwen, and at her request, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in her name on the Order Paper.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
My Lords, supporting local authorities in their responsibility to create sufficient school places is one of the Government’s top priorities. We work closely with local authorities to ensure that they are on target to achieve this. This Government are spending £7 billion to create new school places between 2015 and 2021, which, along with our investment in the free schools programme, we expect to provide 600,000 new places at both primary and secondary level.
Baroness Donaghy
I thank the Minister for that Answer. However, it will be of little comfort for almost half of all secondary school entrants in areas of high demand, who have just missed out on their first choice of school. First, will the Minister explain how this acute problem came about? Secondly, what measures will the department be putting in place for monitoring and training to ensure that this is not allowed to happen again?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
Let me reassure the noble Baroness that, in fact, the latest figures that we have show that there were over 530,000 applications for secondary school places, yet 95% of parents received an offer from one of their top three preferred secondary schools. We accept that new places do need to be created, which is why we have committed £7 billion over the course of this Parliament to 2020 to deliver 600,000 new places. I also reassure the noble Baroness that, in 2015, there were 430 fewer secondary schools at or in excess of capacity than in 2010. Therefore, although more needs to be done, parents should be reassured that the vast majority do get their children into the school that they want.
Teacher Training
Debate between Baroness Evans of Bowes Park and Baroness Donaghy
Baroness Donaghy
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to ensure the supply of adequately trained teachers, particularly teachers trained by university departments of education.
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)
The Government believe that our best schools should play a leading role in training new teachers, so that they are fully equipped to succeed in the classroom. Many schools are actively choosing to work closely with universities in delivering teacher training, recognising the benefits that they can bring. We are committed to ensuring that the teaching profession can attract and retain the very best people. We now have more, better-qualified teachers in England’s classrooms than ever before.
Baroness Donaghy (Lab)
I thank the Minister for her reply, and I know that this is not her area of direct responsibility. However, she must be aware that we have an unstable teacher supply framework, that there are going to be shortages of teachers in some regions in both the short term and the medium term and that the unstable income stream for higher education might mean that some universities—particularly those in the Russell Group—will opt out of the connection with teacher education altogether. Does she really think that that adds up to a good policy for this Government?
Baroness Evans of Bowes Park
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. She is right that we are moving to a school-led teacher training system, but that involves collaboration between universities and schools. A teacher-led or school-led system does not mean a university-excluded system, and we are seeing great collaboration whereby, for example, 70% of School Direct places are actually being delivered by universities. It is improving the link between schools and universities, but also putting in charge of teacher training those who know best what they want in their schools—the head teachers.