Education: Public Funding
Debate between David T C Davies and Nick Gibb(7 years, 4 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
The free schools programme has been hugely successful, with 29% of those inspected rated “outstanding” by Ofsted. Of the mainstream free schools approved since 2014, 86% have been in areas where there was a need for more schools, and the remaining 14% in places where parents are unhappy with the quality of the school places.
David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
The independent PISA––programme for international student assessment—results show that England has the best educational outcomes in the United Kingdom, and Wales, which has been run by Labour for nearly 20 years, has the worst. Is it not about time that Labour Members started to celebrate our policies, which are working, and look rather more critically at their own?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. As I have said, the key stage 2 results published today show an increase of eight percentage points in standards of reading, writing and maths. We have also seen an increase in the proportion of children passing the age-six phonics check, with 58% passing it in 2012 and 81% passing it last year. That means that as of last year 147,000 more six-year-olds are on track to becoming fluent readers than would have been the case had we not introduced our phonics policy.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between David T C Davies and Nick Gibb(14 years, 1 month ago)
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David T. C. Davies (Monmouth) (Con)
16. What his latest assessment is of levels of educational under-achievement among white working-class boys.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
White boys in receipt of free school meals are among the lowest attaining groups of students. In 2009, just 19.4% of white boys eligible for free school meals achieved five or more good GCSEs including English and maths, compared to 50.7% of all pupils.
David T. C. Davies
I am grateful to the Minister, who obviously recognises the problem, which was first raised by the National Union of Teachers in a report about two years ago. Can he assure us that, unlike the previous Government, he will not, for reasons of political correctness, try to brush it under the carpet, and that he will do something about it?
Mr Gibb
It is a concern when any particular group is significantly underperforming compared with the national average. One big priority for the Government is to close the attainment gap between those from the wealthiest and the poorest backgrounds. We are focusing on that in a range of education policies from academies to free schools, and also in our focus on improving behaviour in schools and reviewing the curriculum.