Independent Schools

Baroness Neville-Rolfe Excerpts

Monday 23rd June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right about the disproportionate number of such people at the top of absolutely every profession, including politics, if you call it a profession. Therefore, it is exceedingly important that we focus on making sure that the state sector does a better job in ensuring that students are able to flourish and fulfil their potential. That is key.

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

My Lords, although I believe that the success of independent schools has helped our economy, what progress has been made by Teach First, whose students have often attended independent schools, and what contribution is it making to our education system? Will the noble Baroness comment on today’s news that the Government may be considering “Teach Last” as well, which would help to improve the school curriculum as regards subjects such as maths?

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend’s last point is very interesting and I will feed that into the department. It is encouraging to see the number of recent graduates who are coming into teaching; it has grown enormously. The proportion with, for example, firsts and 2:1 degrees reached 74% in 2013-14, compared with 66% in 2011-12, which is very encouraging.