Oral Answers to Questions

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

2. What steps her Department is taking to assist teachers in managing their workload.

[Rebecca Pow (Taunton Deane) (Con)]

8. What steps her Department is taking to assist teachers in managing their workload.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Nicky Morgan)]

First, I add my welcome to the hon. Member for Ashton-under-Lyne (Angela Rayner). I look forward to engaging with her on our mutual interests: education and, I understand, women and equalities. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Manchester Central (Lucy Powell) for her work as shadow Education Secretary. I think it is fair to say that we did not agree on everything, or perhaps even much, but I do pay tribute to her hard work, and that of the hon. Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin), who I have also worked with over the years.

We are continuing our extensive work to remove unnecessary workload for teachers. As part of my commitment to taking action in this area, we established three independent review groups to tackle workload relating to marking, lesson planning, and data management. We have accepted all their recommendations to Government. We urge school leaders and others in the education system also to act on those recommendations, and we will continue to work on this.

[Mrs Drummond]

Has my right hon. Friend considered lengthening the school day to allow teachers the space to plan and mark during the school day, rather than during evenings and weekends? That would also give pupils the opportunity to engage in subjects such as art, music, drama and sport that may not be part of their curriculum at the moment.

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend will remember that in the Budget the Chancellor mentioned support for a longer school day. Many schools already offer extra activities as part of a longer school day. We are keen to support this, and hope that they will broaden their range of activities. However, if we have a longer school day, there is no requirement for teachers to increase their workload to accommodate that. We will come forward with more details in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Gentleman raises a really important issue, and we of course want to see more young people studying STEM subjects. My first boss in the House in the last Parliament, now Lord Willetts, told me that there were two ways to engage young people in science—space or dinosaurs.

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

T2. Following a rather poor Ofsted report for the local authority in Portsmouth, will the Secretary of State outline what support her Department can give to help schools in Portsmouth to become centres of excellence?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)]

My hon. Friend is a strong promoter of educational excellence in Portsmouth. Centres of excellence in initial teacher training will be designated on the basis of criteria such as the quality of trainee teachers recruited, the quality of training courses, the outcomes for trainee teachers and training providers’ effectiveness in recruiting. We expect to confirm the schools and universities that have been designated as centres of excellence for the 2017-18 academic year when the allocation of training places is made in the autumn.