Lord Lexden
Main Page: Lord Lexden (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Lexden's debates with the Department for Education
(11 years, 6 months ago)
Lords ChamberCan my noble friend tell the House what the Government are doing to ensure that children in alternative provision have support and education to a standard that is on a par with that in mainstream schools?
We are focusing intensely on alternative provision providers. This Government have sent a very clear message that we expect alternative provision education to be equivalent to that in mainstream schools. There is no doubt that alternative provision in this country is extremely erratic. I am delighted to see that we have a number of alternative provision providers coming through in the new free school applications, and I expect that a number of them will be approved. A number of alternative provision providers are converting to academies. We have some excellent alternative provision providers. We have also asked Ofsted to look specifically at alternative provision through a thematic inspection process.