Pupil Premium

Laura Sandys Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

That is an absolutely crucial point. The Department is not going to go back to the fashion under some previous Secretaries of State of micro-managing individual schools and telling them what interventions they need to deliver. Schools have a better understanding of the interventions that will work for the school and the individuals than we will ever do, sitting in a Department in London. However, we are going to hold schools to account for ensuring that whatever interventions they use are successful. We have worked closely with Ofsted to ensure that this is a key part of the accountability process for schools, and that there is a much greater focus by Ofsted on narrowing the gap. The chief inspector has made it clear that schools will no longer be ranked outstanding if they are failing in this key area, and there will be a requirement on schools that are not delivering a good standard to commission support from key leaders in education, such as national leaders of education, to bring advice into the school when it is failing to narrow the gaps. We have also recently appointed the widely respected John Dunford, who has great experience in education, to serve as a champion of the pupil premium and to spread the message about best practice to schools across the country.

[Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)]

Picking up on best practice, the primary school in the poorest ward in my constituency, Newington, has seen a 40% increase in standards in English and maths. The head teacher puts that down solely to the pupil premium so, locally, people will be very pleased with this suite of measures. One measure that seems to be being misinterpreted is the assessment of three-year-olds. Responsible teachers will make an assessment of the young people coming into their school so that they can put the right measures in place. It is not an exam, as has been suggested by some Opposition Members.

[Mr Laws]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many schools are already using baseline assessment on entry to school; that is the rational thing to do. It is also the most rational way of measuring progress, rather than doing it over an arbitrary period. I also agree with her that the additional money for the pupil premium and the additional accountability and focus will be crucial to narrowing the gap. The huge amounts of money going into schools with large numbers of pupil-premium pupils will result in some dramatic and impressive progress over the next few years in improving the lot of young people from those backgrounds.