(8 years, 4 months ago)
Commons ChamberI am sure the hon. Gentleman will bear up stoically and with fortitude under the burden.
Could the Minister now answer the original question? Is he advocating the abolition of national pay scales, because that is what it sounds like he is saying?
What I am saying is that, with the new freedoms academies have, they are able to pay salaries to attract the best teachers. That is a very good policy; it enables them to retain and attract the graduates in maths, physics and modern languages that schools and headteachers are telling us they need to recruit.
(9 years, 12 months ago)
Commons Chamber18. What recent representations she has received on the National Audit Office’s report, “Academies and maintained schools: oversight and intervention”, published on 30th October 2014, HC 721; and if she will make a statement.
I have received no representations on the National Audit Office’s report. The Department will reply to any recommendations the Public Accounts Committee makes in due course.
Is the Minister aware that the NAO report points out that the Department for Education finds it difficult to judge the value of various school interventions? Does he agree with that assessment? If he does not agree with it, why not?
We do not agree with that assessment. The report is factually accurate, but we do not believe that the interpretation the NAO has put on the facts is correct. The oversight of our schools is very clear: the oversight of academies is very clear, the oversight of maintained schools by local authorities is very clear, and the oversight by Ofsted is very clear. We are seeing a rise in academic standards across maintained schools and across academies and free schools in this country.
(12 years, 10 months ago)
Commons ChamberFollowing the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), would the Secretary of State like to congratulate the Holocaust Educational Trust, which works tirelessly visiting schools and educating students in the horrors of the genocide of the second world war?