Al-Madinah Free School Debate

Full Debate: Read Full Debate
Department: Department for Education

Al-Madinah Free School

Lord Winston Excerpts
Thursday 17th October 2013

(11 years, 11 months ago)

Lords Chamber
Read Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to my noble friend for his question. I agree with him entirely on both points.

Lord Winston Portrait Lord Winston (Lab)
- Hansard - -

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Blackstone makes an important point. Is the Minister aware that only recently I gave a class to 17 primary school teachers teaching science for professional career development? Only one had done science at university and most of them did not have even an A-level in science? That is a very real problem when you are dealing with children under the age of 10.

Lord Nash Portrait Lord Nash
- Hansard - - - Excerpts

I am grateful to the noble Lord for his question. I was not aware of the lesson he referred to, although I have heard him speak on a number of occasions. I entirely agree. The state of our primary schools in many cases is not satisfactory and we have an active programme in place to improve this. I would be happy to talk to him in more detail about it privately.