"My Lords, I will briefly enter this debate on Amendment 35A and the question of whether Clause 28 should stand part. There is a so-called route to school improvement that my noble friend Lady Morris mentioned: you change your intake. It is relatively quick and it is not painless at …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"I imagine it will come as no surprise that I support my noble friend Lord Knight. It seems to me that high teacher quality is obviously a critical issue in making sure that we have a well-functioning and successful education system. One of the problems by which we have been …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, I shall speak briefly to Amendments 50 and 55. Amendment 50 seeks to protect the interests and encourage the involvement of all parties in a school community. It clearly makes sense that the Bill should provide for a procedure for the circumstances in which an individual academy seeks …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, I will add to the question of “academies or maintained schools”. During the coalition Government, when Secretaries of State, often from the party opposite, talked about visiting schools and praised schools, they were always academies. I would like to find an example where they praised a maintained school, …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, I find myself following the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I wanted to say that it was a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Baker, but it is equally a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Nash. I have very little to say on the report since …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"I intervene briefly to say that an enormous amount of work could and should be done on the curriculum. The fact is that we are into the 21st century, and fantastic work is being done by educators all over the place about how we best educate our young people for …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, it is interesting to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Fox, because I do not entirely agree with her characterisation of what is going on in schools. I believe that there is a level of mental distress among our children and young people. I am sure it was exacerbated …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, I wish to speak briefly to Amendments 23, 24, 25 and 27, to which I have added my name, and Amendment 26, which, alas, I overlooked but with which I absolutely agree. I declare an interest as a vice-chair of the APPG for Parental Participation in Education. The …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"I am very grateful to the noble Lord for giving way. I had the experience of being a teacher from the early 1970s and what the noble Lord describes in a multi-academy trust is exactly what happened in many local authorities. There were many teachers—for example, primary teachers—who did not …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech
"My Lords, given the lateness of the hour, I will comment but briefly. Notwithstanding that some of us on these Benches have found this a difficult Bill to amend in the way we might have wanted, I hope the Minister can see that, by proposing the super-affirmative procedure, we are …..." Baroness Blower - View Speech