Schools White Paper

My Lords, I do not accept that structural reform is inimical to the best interests of teachers or to their ability to develop their professional standards. On the contrary, if we take one of the biggest structural reforms that we have engaged in since 1997—the expansion of specialist school status to the great majority of the secondary school system—it was a structural reform that required schools to change and has been warmly welcomed by teachers, particularly in areas where subject specialist centres of excellence have been developed, because they see it as an enhancement of their professional competence.