Schools White Paper

With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement about the reform of schools. Every child matters, and children have only one chance of a good school education. Our ambition is for every child to get that chance and to develop their talents to the fullest extent. The White Paper that I am publishing today aims to make this aspiration a reality by building systematically on eight years of rising school standards and of sustained investment by this Government in the teaching profession and school reform. It places parents at the heart of education, extending parental choice and giving schools the freedom that they require to meet parental demand and pupil need in radically new and better ways. Since 1997, the quality of teaching and leadership in our schools has been transformed. Primary schools now have a daily literacy hour and mathematics lesson. Classes are smaller, and there has been significant investment in the training of primary teachers and assistants. Secondary schools have benefited from a systematic upgrading in the number, quality and training of subject specialist teachers. Graduate applications for secondary school teaching have risen by 60 per cent. in just six years. There are 32,000 more teachers than in 1997, and the number of school support staff has doubled over the same period. Ofsted reports that the proportion of good or excellent teaching in primary schools has risen since 1997 from 45 per cent. to 74 per cent., and in secondary schools the figure has risen from 59 per cent. to 78 per cent. The proportion of badly taught lessons has halved. Thanks to our literacy and numeracy strategies, around 96,000 more children a year start secondary school able to do well in basic maths, and 84,000 more do so in English. There have been big improvements at GCSE level too—[Interruption.]