Oral Answers to Questions

Thérèse Coffey Excerpts

Monday 4th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I absolutely will not apologise to the people of east Durham for standing up for better education for their children. Perhaps the most telling remarks about the lack of ambition in schools in east Durham were uttered by Lord Adonis. Having visited a school there, he said that a teacher had told him, “In the past children turned right to work in the shipyards or left to work in the coal mines. Now they might as well walk on into the sea.” That spirit of defeatism reported by the noble Lord is exactly what we need to attack. Instead of attacking the Government, the hon. Gentleman would be better off tackling underperformance in his own constituency.

[Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)]

I welcome the publication of the dashboards launched by Ofsted last week and recommend them to the public, parents and governors. Will the Secretary of State go further, though, and explain how we can reconcile some of the Ofsted judgments with the attainment and other progress reports?

[Michael Gove]

The chief inspector is absolutely right to publish these dashboards, but they are only the beginning of how governors and others can hold schools to account for their performance. For example, if we look at the performance of schools under the English baccalaureate measure, we see that there are many schools across the country whose superficial headline GCSE figures flatter to deceive.