Robert Halfon
Main Page: Robert Halfon (Conservative - Harlow)Department Debates - View all Robert Halfon's debates with the Department for Education
(3 years ago)
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Gavin Williamson
This Government are delivering real increases for schools right across the board. We are delivering an extra £1.7 billion in support to schools to ensure that they are able to help children to catch up. That is what we are doing. That is the difference we are making through schemes such as the national tutoring programme. This is making a real impact on children’s lives. We are proud of that and we will continue to drive it forward.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con) [V]
While I strongly support the Government’s summer holiday activities programme, there is a risk that disadvantaged pupils may be less likely to attend. Extending the school day with proper buy-in from parents and pupils makes it easier to engage disadvantaged pupils who are already through the school’s gate. All the evidence suggests that extending the school day has beneficial effects, including increasing educational attainment by an additional two months, and Sheffield Hallam University has said that it generates £4.5 million from improved educational attainment. Will my right hon. Friend support extending the school day, and can he confirm whether the Government have conducted any modelling to calculate the potential cost of an extended school day in England?
Gavin Williamson
My right hon. Friend is right to highlight the fact that we want to ensure that children from the most disadvantaged backgrounds will be among the key beneficiaries of any changes and further interventions we make to ensure that children are able to catch up. One of those areas, which it is right to look at, is an extended school day and how we ensure that children from all backgrounds can benefit from being in school longer. That is why we have asked Sir Kevan Collins to look at this with us. We are doing extensive modelling on this whole area, looking at a whole range of different options, not just on the time in a school day, but targeting schemes such as the National Tutoring Programme as well as supporting teachers in their professional development and continuing to raise the quality of teaching in all our classrooms.