Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Monday 19th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that that is the right way for many schools to go. I agree that it should be on a voluntary basis—locally supported by the Government, but not imposed. I also agree that we have hugely helped schools in rural areas by addressing the historic underfunding in many parts of the country. My hon. Friend’s own area of North Yorkshire has gained £10 million per year from the changes that we have made.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does the Secretary of State agree with me and the overwhelming majority of my constituents who think that the healthiest pattern for this country, its communities and society is for kids to go to school together? Is she not worried by the proliferation of faith schools in our country, in which children learn only in the shadow of their faith?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Monday 1st December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the very strong case he made for this school at the end of last week. As a consequence, this morning we approved popular growth funding of almost £300,000 for the school. It is particularly important to award such funding where the change in pupil numbers is due to popular growth changes, and I will look more widely at the points he raises.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

What sort of spell has the Secretary of State cast on her Front-Bench team? I have never seen a bunch of numpties with such a lack of vision and passion. I went to five schools in my constituency on Friday. They are crying out for new teachers. They cannot recruit. What will she do about that?

Education

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Ministerial Corrections

[Mr Sheerman]

To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he has taken to assess the morale of teachers.

[Official Report, 17 March 2014, Vol. 577, c. 388W.]

Letter of correction from David Laws:

An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman) on 17 March 2014.

The full answer given was as follows:

[Mr Laws]

We have enormous respect for teachers and the vital role they play. We continue to support teachers by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy. We trust them to use their professional judgment and we reward good quality teaching, including through pay flexibilities which allow heads to pay good teachers more.

A recent survey for the Times Educational Supplement found that teachers generally feel positive about the work they do. Last year, the Varkey GEMS foundation's Global Teacher Status Index found levels of public respect for the teaching profession in England were higher than in Finland or Germany.

It is very encouraging that so many good people are choosing a career in teaching. 74% of new teachers now have a 2:1 or a first degree—the highest ever recorded. 14% of Oxford graduates go into teaching, and the annual Graduate Market in 2014 report identified Teach First as Britain's biggest graduate recruiter.

The correct answer should have been:

Teacher Training and Supply

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Mr Laws]

I am happy to write to the hon. Lady with the exact figures, which I do not have to hand, but there were considerable undershoots on both, so we have not been suppressing demand for places in higher education institutions, particularly in those shortage subjects. As she will know, maths and physics are subjects that have traditionally been challenging to recruit for, although we recruited a record number of physics trainees last year. We would need 37% of all physics graduates to come into teacher training to meet our target for physics teachers alone.

We recognise that we need to do more to improve recruitment in shortage subjects, and to increase the number of people taking A-levels, which is likely to increase the pool of people who can be drawn into those subjects. That is why we announced last week that we will make more scholarships available and change bursaries to help recruit the most talented graduates in key subjects. Scholarships awarded by respected subject organisations will be made available to the top maths, physics, chemistry and computing trainees, which will build on the existing scholarships that have proved highly popular. Since the Government introduced scholarships in 2011, 425 high-quality graduates in maths, physics, chemistry and computing have been attracted to teaching through the scheme.

[Mr Sheerman]

Will the Minister give way on that point about science?

[Mr Laws]

I will briefly give way, and then I must press on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister for Schools is yet again articulating the shortages in maths and physics. Does he subscribe to the view that universities ought to have a much greater specialism in training teachers so that there is a culture in which teaching is attractive to science and maths graduates generally?

[Mr Laws]

Yes, I strongly agree. We must also do more to get more people to take both A-levels and degrees in those subjects.

A further 680 teacher training scholarships will be available for trainees starting in the 2014-15 academic year, with scholarships increasing to £25,000 in September 2014. Bursaries will continue to be available in maths, physics, chemistry, computing and languages, as well as in a range of other subjects, and we will increase some bursary payments for maths, physics and computing to reflect the challenges faced in recruitment to initial teacher training this year. Hon. Members will be aware of the new bursary figures that we published last week.

Furthermore, A-level results published in August by the Joint Council for Qualifications show that there has been a big rise in the number and proportion of young people taking A-levels in maths and physics. More students—both the number of entries and the percentage of the cohort—now do maths, further maths and physics at A-level than ever before, which means that we expect to have a bigger pool of potential shortage subject candidates.

Shortfalls in recruitment are mitigated by the fact that newly qualified teachers make up only about half—23,500—of the 45,000 new teachers in English state schools in 2010-11; of the rest, a third of the total or 14,700 people had qualified in previous years, and a fifth of the total or 8,200 people were returners. Initial teacher training targets are set in the context of longer-term recruitment patterns and anticipated need over a number of years, so over-recruitment in previous years, including in maths and chemistry, is taken into account in the targets set for future years. Therefore, over-recruitment in previous years gives some protection against under-recruitment in one year. We have over-recruited in some areas over the past few years.

Alongside getting teachers into the key subject areas, we must still maintain our strong focus on teacher quality in all subjects. We know that we have the highest quality of trainee teachers ever. In 2012, more than 70% of graduates starting teacher training had a 2:1 or higher, which is the highest proportion ever recorded. We are increasing teacher quality through a number of reforms. We have provided schools with increased flexibility to decide how much they pay a teacher and how quickly pay progresses, which will enable schools to target school-level recruitment and retention problems. We are reforming initial teacher training so that schools play a greater role in the selection and training of teachers, through the expansion of School Direct and with more schools becoming accredited ITT providers. That will provide schools with greater choice and influence over the quality of both training and trainees.

The introduction of School Direct marks a sea change in how schools are involved in the recruitment and training of teachers. It effectively gives head teachers more influence over training and recruitment issues. Many of them welcome that, which is why schools are so keen to participate in the School Direct programme, albeit that they have proved themselves, in the first year, to be highly discriminating about the applicants whom they decide to take on. That is a good thing, although it is a challenge to ensure that we get the allocations right. The director of the leading Arthur Terry teaching school in Birmingham has said:

“It is very much the vision that all future appointments will be from our pool of training teachers and reduce the need to advertise nationally.”

Over time, many teachers and head teachers will want to take more responsibility for managing initial teacher training. The number of schools that are interested in taking part in School Direct shows that there is an appetite for that, and it is right to respond positively to this enthusiasm. Although it is still early days, School Direct is proving a highly popular means of recruiting great candidates into high-quality school-led training. For 2013-14, more than 9,000 places were requested by 850 schools, more than a third of which were from teaching schools, and by May, about 22,500 people had applied for the 9,400 places available. Recruitment shortfalls cannot be attributed to the introduction of School Direct. So far School Direct has recruited 67% of the places it was allocated, and—I made this point earlier—the subjects that have struggled to recruit through School Direct have also struggled to recruit to core places in HEIs, which is why we are introducing more scholarships and increasing bursaries.

Al-Madinah Free School

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman—the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education—that Lord Nash and I are taking decisive action to ensure that the school improves its leadership and governance. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot go into all the details of that, although the clear requirements are set out in the letter Lord Nash wrote to the school on 8 October, which has been published.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

The leaked report has rung an alarm bell. Will the right hon. Gentleman learn the lessons from it, because what begins as a good idea—having unqualified and sometimes untrained teachers in an establishment—can, in some cases, be very dangerous and damaging? May we have an explicit word from him this morning to say that, in this country, no establishment and no school—this should not even happen in home schooling—should treat girls in a subservient way and differently from boys?

[Mr Laws]

The hon. Gentleman, the former Chair of the Select Committee, is absolutely right: different treatment for boys and girls is unacceptable. We have made that absolutely clear and required the school to change those practices immediately, for both pupils and teaching staff. He is a reasonable man and will know that it is sensible and responsible to draw the right conclusions from one school, and balance them against the success of many free schools. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) wanted to praise and associate himself with that success on Sunday and withdrew his support by Tuesday.

Secondary Schools (Accountability)

Debate between David Laws and Barry Sheerman

Monday 14th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for his kind comments about the proposals we have announced today. I am happy to pay tribute to him for the role he has played in ensuring the improvement of the proposals between the original announcement and consultation in February and today, when the final proposals were made. He is right that the new progress measure will ensure that the attention and focus is not only, as it was in the past, on the schools with the lowest levels of attainment, but on schools that appear to have high levels of attainment but where levels of progress are extremely low. Schools have been able to coast over the past decade because their overall levels of attainment look all right, when they have actually been failing young people by not getting much better results from them.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

This is probably the best statement I have heard from a Minister since 2010, when the Government were formed. It is not all perfect, but the Government have listened and have modified the proposals. They should be congratulated on that. If they listened to last week’s debate on adult literacy and numeracy, will they take the lesson that the one area in which we still underachieve is the failure of at least 25% of our young people coming through education to get almost any qualification at 16? That is where the concentration must be and we need action soon.

[Mr Laws]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, the former Chair of the Select Committee, for his kind comments. He is absolutely right that one of the big challenges we must address in education is the very large number of young people who are not getting through GCSEs with decent qualifications in English and maths. Shockingly, at the moment the overwhelming majority of those young people continue to fail beyond the age of 16. Many do not even attempt to retake those subjects to get that basic level of literacy and numeracy, and we must address that.