Al-Madinah Free School Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Al-Madinah Free School

Lord Winston Excerpts
Thursday 17th October 2013

(10 years, 7 months ago)

Lords Chamber
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Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I agree with him entirely on both points.

Lord Winston Portrait Lord Winston (Lab)
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My Lords, my noble friend Lady Blackstone makes an important point. Is the Minister aware that only recently I gave a class to 17 primary school teachers teaching science for professional career development? Only one had done science at university and most of them did not have even an A-level in science? That is a very real problem when you are dealing with children under the age of 10.

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
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I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I was not aware of the lesson he referred to, although I have heard him speak on a number of occasions. I entirely agree. The state of our primary schools in many cases is not satisfactory and we have an active programme in place to improve this. I would be happy to talk to him in more detail about it privately.