Education: Return in January

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 6th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am not sure, with respect, that the question asked by the noble Baroness is the right question. We had 350,000 CO₂ monitors in schools last term. They are portable and are moved around multiple classrooms, staff rooms, lavatories—all over the school. From those we have readings showing where there is an elevated level of CO₂. Those spaces, which amount to about 8,000, are where we are putting in the ventilators. If the noble Baroness does not believe the Government, she might look at Teacher Tapp, which came up with the same figure.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My noble friend did not reply to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Watson, about the comments from the head of Ofqual, who seems to think that teachers of music should be redeployed to teach other subjects. Surely, we need more music in our schools, not less.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

One can never have enough music in one’s life, but the point we are trying to make is that we are in a relatively brief—hopefully—but intense and challenging period for schools. We trust teachers and head teachers to make the right judgments about how to use their resources. If that involves some flexibility in the curriculum or combining two class groups if a teacher is off sick, then we trust them to do that intelligently, well and in our children’s interests.