School Accountability and Intervention

Sarah Smith Excerpts

Monday 3rd February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Catherine McKinnell]

I absolutely agree. High-quality teaching is the most important in-school factor for improving outcomes for children. We absolutely need to drive recruitment, but our greatest tool for recruitment is retention—we need to hold on to the fantastic teachers who are in our schools. A more holistic and broader picture of schools will shine a light on the great practice going on, the hard work and the context in which schools operate, and will deliver on the desire, which I know every teacher has, to deliver high and rising standards for the children in their care.

[Sarah Smith (Hyndburn) (Lab)]

I have worked closely with schools in some of the most disadvantaged parts of our country, and I have seen academy trust after academy trust fail to turn around schools in some of the most challenging circumstances, leaving behind some of our most disadvantaged learners. I welcome the Government’s commitment to support the turnaround with cash, with £100,000 being made available as compared with the £6,000 that was previously provided. Does that not show the difference in the importance placed by Labour on turning around failing schools compared with the Tories?

[Catherine McKinnell]

My hon. Friend puts it very well. We absolutely need to be laser-focused on schools that have consistently underperformed but have not received the support, help or intervention they need to succeed. We will be laser-focused on supporting those schools to achieve the outcomes that we know they want to achieve for their children but just need the support to do so.