Nick Gibb
Main Page: Nick Gibb (Conservative - Bognor Regis and Littlehampton)Department Debates - View all Nick Gibb's debates with the Department for Education
(9 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Douglas Carswell (Clacton) (UKIP)
3. What estimate her Department has made of the number of free schools that will be in operation by 2020.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Free schools are helping to raise academic standards and tackle disadvantage, ensuring social justice is at the heart of our education reform programme. Over 250 free schools have opened since 2010, and our manifesto commits us to at least 500 more during this Parliament. By 2020, free schools will have created over 400,000 new school places.
Mr Carswell
For every part of England to benefit from the spread of free schools, restrictions on their expansion need to be removed and capital attracted. What will the Minister do to remove those restrictions and overcome the reactionary blob in his Department?
Dr Tania Mathias (Twickenham) (Con)
What assurances can the Minister give me regarding securing buildings for free schools? In my constituency, east Twickenham is in desperate need of free schools but there are very few suitable sites.
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend raises an important point. We need local authorities to be co-operative and to work with us to identify sites for free schools. This is an important way of improving the quality of schools and the number of school places, and we expect local authorities to work with us to identify suitable sites.
Clive Efford (Eltham) (Lab)
Does the Minister share my concern about the standards in these free schools? Is he concerned that they might not actually provide the improvement in the quality of education that the Government claim, and can he point to any evidence that free schools have improved the standard of education in any areas where they have opened?
Ben Howlett (Bath) (Con)
4. What steps her Department is taking to encourage schools to broaden opportunities available for disadvantaged children.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Thank you, Mr Speaker Bercow.
Subject knowledge enhancement courses allow trainee teachers to build on their existing knowledge to enable them to teach their chosen subject. We have reformed the programme so that the courses can now be delivered by schools and universities, and we are promoting the courses through the successful “Get into Teaching” marketing campaign. The additional training is free of charge and most participants also receive a bursary. New chemistry trainees are also eligible for a bursary of up to £25,000 in 2015-16.
Louise Haigh
Given that the number of primary teachers in Sheffield with a science degree is below the national average, does the Minister agree that it is wrong for the teacher supply model not to account for regional variation?
Mr Gibb
The teacher supply model takes into account the national position. There will, of course, always be areas of the country that find it more challenging to recruit than others, particularly rural areas or some coastal areas. We are also faced with the challenge of a strong economy. If you really want to make recruiting graduates into teaching easier, you need a weak and stagnant economy, with low growth, recession and high levels of unemployment, but for that you need a Labour Government.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
8. What assessment her Department has made of recent trends in teacher retention; and if she will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
Statistics published earlier this month show that teacher retention has remained broadly stable for a number of years. Eighty seven per cent of teachers who qualified in 2013 were teaching a year later; this figure has remained roughly constant in each year since 2005. Seventy seven per cent of teachers who qualified in 2011 were still teaching three years later; and 60% of teachers remain in the classroom 10 years after qualifying.
Dr Huq
Various recent polls have shown that up to 68% of teachers have considered leaving the profession altogether in the next 12 months. In my constituency, the prohibitive cost of housing contributes to that figure. Heads say that that prevents teachers from staying beyond their initial teacher training. What steps will the Department take to head off the coming teacher crisis in London?
Mr Gibb
I do not recognise the hon. Lady’s figures. Our figures show that 52% of those who qualified in 1996 are still teaching 18 years later. We are doing an enormous amount to encourage teachers to stay in the profession and graduates to come into the profession. We are tackling the workload problem and poor behaviour in schools and we are improving teacher training.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
We hear a lot of noise from the Opposition about how there is a so-called crisis in teacher recruitment. Will the Minister put things into perspective by explaining to the House the comparison between the number of people joining the teaching profession compared with that of those leaving the profession over the past decade?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend makes a good point. So far this year, for example, we have received 24,000 acceptances on to teaching training programmes at universities and schools. That is marginally ahead of where we were this time last year. We have exceeded targets for primary school trainees and for history and PE teachers, and we are ahead on acceptances for maths, physics, chemistry and design and technology compared with this time last year. We do not underestimate the challenges, but those are the challenges that come from a strong economy, and I would rather have that than a weak economy.
Wes Streeting (Ilford North) (Lab)
I should declare that I am an unpaid member of the London borough of Redbridge and a member of the governing body of Grove primary school in Chadwell Heath. Just last week, both Labour and Conservative councillors expressed concern about the school places crisis in Redbridge. Given that we have one of the fastest growing populations in London, what assurance can the Minister give us that we will receive the funding necessary for additional schools and school places and that there will be the teachers there to staff them?
Mr Gibb
The hon. Gentleman was not here under the previous Labour Government when they cut 200,000 primary school places in the middle of a baby boom. One of the first decisions that we had to take in 2010 was to double the amount of spending on creating more school places. Some £5 billion was spent in the previous Parliament and £7 billion will be spent in this one.
Rishi Sunak (Richmond (Yorks)) (Con)
9. What progress her Department is making on providing fairer funding for schools.
Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)
T2. What support will the Minister offer primary schools that are trying to improve literacy standards for all pupils so that no child leaves school unable to read and write?
The Minister for Schools (Mr Nick Gibb)
As my hon. Friend knows, the Government place phonics at the heart of the early teaching of reading, and that is reflected in the new national curriculum. The coalition Government provided £23 million in match funding to more than 14,000 primary schools to boost the quality of phonics teaching. In 2012, we introduced a phonics screening check to identify those children still struggling with reading. Three years on from its introduction, the screening check shows that over 100,000 more six-year-olds are on track to becoming confident readers.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
I am told that, having forced schools across the country to become academies, the Department now finds that the bureaucratic oversight is too difficult and is trying to force them all to become part of large academy chains. That may work for normal schools, but it is very difficult for studio schools and university technical colleges. Will the Secretary of State confirm that there is no truth in that rumour and that there is no pressure on schools to join academy chains?
Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)
Landhead primary school in Ballymoney in my constituency was one of the recent winners of the national flag display to celebrate Magna Carta. There was a celebration here in Parliament square and at Runnymede. Now that the celebrations are starting to draw to a close, what are the Government’s long-term proposals to ensure that Magna Carta and, indeed, the celebration and support of Parliament continues to be part of the education process?
Mr Gibb
I congratulate that primary school on taking part in the important celebration of Magna Carta. We have reformed the curriculum, both at primary and secondary school, to ensure that it is more knowledge-based, particularly in history. That will ensure that future school leavers will understand and know more about our important British history.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
T5. The latest figures on the dedicated school grant for 2015-16 show that pupils in my urban Torbay constituency receive significantly less per pupil than their counterparts in other urban areas such as Nottingham. What steps will the Secretary of State be taking to address that funding imbalance, as highlighted by the Campaign for Fairer Funding in Education, or f40?
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
T6. I recently joined pupils at Paddox primary school in Rugby for a class in their outdoor forest school, and the school recently made a successful bid to the Aviva community fund for permanent structures that will enable students to use it all year round. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to encourage other schools to follow Paddox primary’s lead on outdoor learning?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend brings a whole new perspective to the issue of school building design—a very in-tents form of education. Paddox primary school is, of course, an outstanding school and the Government’s approach is to give such schools the freedom to make such decisions, particularly if they believe it will help children to learn their multiplication tables.
Barry Gardiner (Brent North) (Lab)
Primary schools in Brent regularly have classes of 29 children with 21 different mother tongues. How is it possible that a fairer funding formula can discount against such schools relative to others that do not labour under such difficulties?