Education Recovery

Debate between Jeremy Corbyn and Gavin Williamson

Monday 7th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Gavin Williamson]

I share my right hon. Friend’s views: there is a body of evidence that can be collected that shows that extra time in the classroom can deliver real benefits for pupils. It is about getting the combination right. As we have seen from the evidence, parents are very concerned about what their children have missed out on in terms of English and maths. We want to see how we can boost those subjects, as well as some of the additional enrichment activities that go on in schools.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and I are working with some of the great sporting bodies in this country to see how we can bring more enrichment activities into schools. A number of schools have piloted something called session 3, which enables them to run these activities as additional add-ons to the school day, delivering real benefits to children. I think of Thomas Telford in my neighbouring county of Shropshire, which has pioneered the scheme and delivered real benefits to children not just in terms of sporting activities, but in terms of academic activities. We want to compile this evidence as we approach the spending review to see what interventions deliver the best results for all our children.

[Jeremy Corbyn (Islington North) (Ind) [V]]

Many students have suffered greatly during covid and the lockdown. Many children in large families in overcrowded flats have had no access, or very limited access, to computers and the internet, and have therefore lost out massively on educational opportunities. I am very unclear as to how they will be helped with the very small amount of money that the Secretary of State has offered. A total of £50 per pupil is nowhere near what is needed to help these young people catch up on the hundreds of hours of education that they have lost over the past year. Will he please look at it again?

Will the Secretary of State also assure me that the money being spent on tutoring will be paid only to qualified tutors who will be carefully selected and vetted by local education authorities, so that we do have the best possible educational opportunities for all our children, and particularly for those who come from the poorest families in this country?

[Gavin Williamson]

I know that the right hon. Gentleman, like all of us in the House, cares passionately about the education of all children. I can assure him that there will be high-quality tutors as part of the scheme. That is very important to us, because we want to ensure that children are getting the very best, and the way to do that is through the quality of tutors. We are not planning to do that monitoring through local education authorities, but part of what we are doing, as we have outlined, is enabling schools to take on tutors themselves.

I would be happy to sit down with the right hon. Gentleman to talk through some of our proposals and what we are looking at doing. Tutoring has been the preserve of the affluent classes, as he will have seen in his constituency for many, many decades. The children from less affluent parts of his constituency in Islington will not have had that same benefit. Affluent families have always seen the benefit that tutoring has brought their children, and we do not want this to be something that is purely their preserve. I would be delighted to sit down with him and talk through what we are doing, what we are aiming to deliver and how we believe this will improve the lives of children, especially those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.