Out-of-school Education Settings Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Out-of-school Education Settings

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts
Wednesday 20th January 2016

(8 years, 3 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Edward Leigh Portrait Sir Edward Leigh
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Exactly. How proudly I stood on that manifesto. [Laughter.]

Returning to my speech, if the number of problem institutions could be numbered in the tens, why should all these voluntary groups be subject to inspection by Ofsted? Why does that mean that churches could have inspectors deciding whether their doctrine meets the “British values” test? Why should totally moderate, mainstream mosques and madrassahs have to register on a list of potential extremists?

The DFE says that an out-of-school education setting is

“any institution providing tuition, training or instruction to children aged under 19 in England”.

Exceptions are schools, colleges, and registered childcare providers. The Government talk about “intensive education”. That sounds bad—like it has a controlling influence on children—but the document says it is

“anything which entails an individual child attending a setting for more than between 6 to 8 hours a week”.

It says that that could be an hour or so every day after school.

Jeremy Lefroy Portrait Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)
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I speak as somebody who even this coming weekend will be engaged in working with young people in a Sunday school. Does my hon. Friend think that, even if we normally do one or two hours a week, the proposals will apply if we take the children away for a weekend, which will be far more than six hours?