Toby Perkins
Main Page: Toby Perkins (Labour - Chesterfield)Department Debates - View all Toby Perkins's debates with the Department for Education
(5 years, 11 months ago)
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Damian Hinds
I am not in the position to judge between those two points directly, but I very much agree with my hon. Friend that there are different ways to achieve expansion. Of course, the bulk of the expansion of school places comes from expanding existing schools, but there is also the possibility to create new schools through the free schools programme. The deadline for the next wave of free school applications is 5 November.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
A few years ago, Brookfield Community School in Chesterfield was an outstanding local authority-run school. Because of the financial pressure the Government put on the school to become an academy, it has done so, but just a few weeks ago it was rated as “requiring improvement” and the academy arrangements have now been sacked. Will the Secretary of State recognise that outstanding schools can be run by local authorities and academies, drop the ideology, and let schools stay as local authority-run if that is what they want to do? The ideology hurts parents, pupils and teachers.