Oral Answers to Questions

Lucy Frazer Excerpts

Monday 19th December 2016 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I welcome my hon. Friend’s private Member’s Bill and have a lot of sympathy for the cause it enshrines. I can commit to a consultation early in the new year, and I know that he and others who are interested in this issue will want to contribute.

[Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to support teachers in improving educational outcomes.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Justine Greening)]

Great teachers are critical to improving educational outcomes. Teaching is a profession, and we support the professional development of teachers, including through the new £74.2 million teaching and leadership innovation fund and the new charter college of teaching. We are also investing in improving curriculum expertise and specialism, particularly in maths, which I saw for myself first hand on a recent visit to Shanghai, China.

[Lucy Frazer]

I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. In “Education Excellence Everywhere”, a paper produced in March 2016, there was a good proposal for a free national teacher vacancy website to ensure that the costs of recruitment were kept down for schools. What progress is the Secretary of State making on that proposal?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. and learned Friend mentions the commitment we made in the March White Paper to a website offering a free route for schools to advertise teacher vacancies and, in doing so, providing teachers with easier access to information about job opportunities. We have worked closely with schools and teachers, and we are testing out different approaches to how to deliver that website most effectively, so we can make sure that it will be of maximum value to all schools.