Schools White Paper

Stephen McPartland Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady, who makes a number of important points. Identifying dyslexia at the earliest possible stage is one of the reasons why we are introducing an appropriate check at the age of six. There are many other ways of identifying children who have special needs and require support. A number of interventions are in place to ensure that, at assessment time, children with dyslexia or specific learning difficulties can be supported through it. I absolutely agree that we can never stop trying to ensure that children who are living with dyslexia or other learning difficulties are better supported.

[Stephen McPartland (Stevenage) (Con)]

I welcome the White Paper. Will my right hon. Friend say a little more about his plans to improve underperforming schools?

[Michael Gove]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, who I know takes a keen interest in the educational attainment of poorer children. In addition to implementing the pupil premium, we are going to focus relentlessly on schools where attainment is low and progress is poor. I know that some schools will often take in children who have been poorly educated at primary level, but still make fantastic progress with them. I do not want those schools to be stigmatised and I do not want schools to be seen as failing, but where they are underperforming, we need to hold them to clear standards and provide additional financial support to help them achieve them. I am perfectly happy to say that this builds on an initiative that the right hon. Member for Sheffield, Brightside and Hillsborough (Mr Blunkett) and Lord Adonis helped to introduce. I take no pride in authorship: this was a good idea, and I am delighted to extend it.