Derek Twigg
Main Page: Derek Twigg (Labour - Widnes and Halewood)Department Debates - View all Derek Twigg's debates with the Department for Education
(14 years ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Michael Gove
I could not agree more. Earlier today, it was a pleasure to visit the Durand primary school in the constituency of the hon. Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey), which does precisely that. The school also does a superb job of training new teachers to become outstanding leaders.
Derek Twigg (Halton) (Lab)
Will the Secretary of State explain his comment, where he says he will
“make GCSE performance tables more aspirational by judging schools on how well all students do—not just in English and maths but also science, modern languages and the humanities, like history and geography”?
Will he explain what that means in plain English?
Michael Gove
Yes, it means that instead of the performance tables that were used under the Labour Government, in which only English and maths and then any mixture of GCSEs were taken into account, we will, in future, have English, maths—[Interruption.] How many questions does the hon. Gentleman want to ask?
I think I made my view clear in my response to the right hon. Member for Leigh (Andy Burnham), but I am happy to have an opportunity to repeat it. I believe that it is wrong to assume that children from poorer backgrounds cannot pass GCSEs in modern foreign languages, science, history and geography. One of our problems in this country is that only 16% of young people achieve those five academic GCSEs, and only 4% of children eligible for free school meals do so. That is a scandal. The hon. Gentleman should be on our side: he should be trying to get the children in his constituency to learn, and to obtain the qualifications that will give them jobs in the future.