Oral Answers to Questions

Marcus Jones Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

There are a number of interrelated issues in the subject that the hon. Lady has rightly raised and that the Children’s Commissioner was talking about today. I am, of course, concerned whenever there is off-rolling, which is not legal. These things must be done properly. I am also concerned about the extent to which we may not know how some children are being educated, and so on. That being said, there are children who are being home educated brilliantly by amazingly dedicated parents, and we have to acknowledge and respect that. As the hon. Lady will know, a review of exclusions is under way. We will report back on that in due course, as well as on some of the wider issues.

[Mr Marcus Jones (Nuneaton) (Con)]

T5. My constituency is seeing a significant and sustained improvement in key stage 2 results. Will the Minister join me in thanking the hard-working teaching staff who are responsible for this, and will he say what more we can do to ensure that all the schools in my constituency are performing well above the national average?

[The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)]

I am delighted to warmly congratulate the teachers in my hon. Friend’s constituency of Nuneaton on the significant improvement in key stage 2 results. Of course, we need to do more to raise standards further, which is why we are investing £76 million to raise the standard of maths education through the 35 maths hubs referred to earlier by my hon. Friend the Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation. We are also spending £26 million on developing 32 schools across England into English hubs, which will take a leading role in supporting schools to improve their teaching of early language and reading.