Amber Rudd
Main Page: Amber Rudd (Independent - Hastings and Rye)Department Debates - View all Amber Rudd's debates with the Department for Education
(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Michael Gove
It is perfectly possible for any school to apply for academy status, but we need to make sure that the leadership team are capable of taking advantage of all the freedoms. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for endorsing academies; I wish that more of his colleagues, such as the hon. Member for Easington (Grahame M. Morris), who is no longer in his place, would do so.
I hope that the hon. Member for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland (Tom Blenkinsop) will recognise, as I and academy sponsors do, that it is not only freedom over the curriculum that matters, but freedom over staffing and freedom to pay good teachers more. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will join me in condemning the strike by the NUT and the NASUWT, which his Front-Bench colleagues have so conspicuously failed to do.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
Academy sponsorship is transforming education in Hastings. The Hastings and St Leonards academies have just been rated good by Ofsted, which represents the long journey they have been on. Will the Secretary of State join me in welcoming ARK, which has taken over the sponsorship of two of our other secondary schools in Hastings?
Michael Gove
I am absolutely delighted that the number of sponsored academies is increasing in areas where educational performance has been too low for too long. I am particularly grateful to my hon. Friend for being such a doughty champion of the children of Hastings, who were let down under the last Government and are being rescued under this one.