“Educational Excellence Everywhere”: Academies

Tom Tugendhat Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend’s commitment, as a local Member of Parliament, to driving up educational standards in his constituency. He is absolutely right to say that. We know there are local authorities across the country—he mentions his own—that have never issued a warning notice or appointed an interim executive board to run a school. We could not be clearer with the regional schools commissioners. They are an excellent team who know they need to intervene swiftly when there is educational failure. We have seen that with the re-brokering of sponsorships and with the sending out of financial and educational warning notices. That absolutely will continue.

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

As the governor of an excellent academy, Hillview school in Tonbridge, which has done so much to maintain the ethos of arts education, I am very proud of the Government’s work to support academies. I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s comments and ask her whether she timed them for me to be able to write to Ightham Parish Council and thank it for its very useful intervention only last week, or whether it was timed for Four Elms Parish Council, whose intervention was on Friday.

[Nicky Morgan]

I am delighted to have assisted my hon. Friend and those parish councils, if that is the case. It was important that we made the announcement. I congratulate him on being a governor of the school. On the arts, I visited the fantastic Lings primary school in Northampton—I think I have mentioned it in the House before—which has embedded Shakespeare in the curriculum from reception to year 6. That shows what inspirational headteachers, with the support of an academy trust, can do to transform education in their schools.