Mark Pawsey
Main Page: Mark Pawsey (Conservative - Rugby)Department Debates - View all Mark Pawsey's debates with the Department for Education
(2 years, 8 months ago)
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Nadhim Zahawi
I hope the hon. Gentleman was listening when I spoke about England rising up the international league tables around the world. That is because we are so focused on making sure that we back our teachers, train them well and then, of course, target our efforts, including on such successful programmes as the phonics screening check. I respectfully disagree with the hon. Gentleman: we need targets. That is why the primary target of 90% for achievement in maths and English and the GCSE average grade target going up from 4.5 to 5 are so important.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Secretary of State and I both have excellent Warwickshire grammar schools in our constituencies; will he say a little about the role of grammars in the raising of standards?
Nadhim Zahawi
I am grateful to my hon. Friend and constituency neighbour for that question. I have in my constituency three grammar schools, all of which are high performing. We want to spread the DNA of grammar schools across the system. There are 165 grammar schools in an education system with 22,000 schools. Many grammar schools have already joined and are leading high-performing, strong multi-academy trusts. I want more of them to do the same, and they will join us on this journey.