Schools: Academies

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I will give the noble Baroness an independent view from the chief inspector, who believes that every school should be an academy. As for local authorities, of course there are a lot of high-performing local authorities and we very much hope that people there will continue to be involved, by spinning out and setting up academy trusts. As I said in an Answer last week, no strong schools will close as a result of the policies in the White Paper. Indeed, we think that many rural schools will be much stronger working together in multi-academy trusts. There are very strict rules about the closure of small and rural schools, and I expect that all such considerations will continue in the future in relation to all rural schools.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I have a slightly different angle on this Question. Where there is a playgroup that wishes to join a primary school that is an academy, because it wants to get that continuous stream of education through the playgroup, the primary school and into the secondary schools, what kind of help do the Government give to that playgroup?

[Lord Nash]

We are now seeing quite a lot of primary academies opening nurseries. The issue of playgroups and children’s centres is one we are considering and I would be happy to discuss it further with the noble Baroness outside the House.