argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Languages Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is quite right that having more young people learning Chinese is important for the UK’s place in the world; indeed, many employers are looking for more staff who are able to speak Mandarin Chinese. This September, we launched a £10 million Mandarin excellence programme, and hundreds of pupils in England have started intensive lessons in Chinese. By 2020, 5,000 pupils will be working towards a high level of fluency in Mandarin Chinese.
Languages Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): I do agree with the hon. Gentleman. He will be aware that, alongside numeracy, a focus on literacy and language has been a core part of how we have improved standards in schools over the past six years.
Languages Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): We are continuing with our community language GCSEs and A-levels. As the hon. Gentleman points out, it has never been more important for young people coming out of our education system to be successful not only in our own country, but in a global world.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): As I said in my letter to my hon. Friend, the Government believe that all students should study a broad and balanced curriculum. Design and technology is an important and valued subject, which is why we are doing a huge amount to promote the importance of D and T, and why we have reformed and improved the curriculum, working with the James Dyson Foundation and other experts to raise the quality and rigour of the design and technology GCSE. D and T is a very popular GCSE choice, with 185,000 entries this year.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Michelle Emma May Elizabeth Donelan (Conservative, Centre-right): We have an annual shortage of 69,000 trained engineers in the UK, with only 6% of that workforce being female. Those shortages are much more severe than in computer science. As the Minister has pointed out, the new design and technology GCSE has the same academic rigour as the other subjects in the EBacc, so will he explain to the House why he felt that computer science was more worthy of EBacc status than design and technology?
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): The EBacc is about a small number of core academic subjects, focused on those subjects that keep options open. I am confident that the new, reformed design and technology GCSE will lead to even more young people wanting to take this qualification in future years, once the new curriculum is in place. However, our policy objective is for more students, particularly those taking design and technology, to study the traditional sciences.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): No. We have engaged in a huge reform to improve the quality of technical qualifications. That is what the Alison Wolf review did in 2011, by removing from performance tables the qualifications for which students were entered but that were not valued in the workplace. Technical qualifications taken by young people now have real value and provide proper jobs. We have also improved the quality of the apprenticeship scheme, which the Minister of State, Department for Education, my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), talked about earlier.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Edward Vaizey (Conservative, Centre-right): Will the Minister join me in welcoming UTC Oxfordshire, based in Didcot in my constituency, which opened this time last year. In fact, it was opened by Brian Cox, no less. Thanks to this Government, children across Oxfordshire can now enjoy a first-class technical education, supported by companies such as BMW Mini, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and RM Education. I hope he will find time to visit it in the coming months.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I would welcome the opportunity to visit my right hon. Friend’s UTC. The UTC programme is another example of how, with our academies programme and our free schools programme, we are providing diverse types of specific and specialist education for every child in this country.
Design and Technology — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: If she will set out her response to the letter to her of July 2016 from hon. Members on the inclusion of design and technology in the EBacc.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): It is not to satisfy the Minister; it is to ensure that young people have the widest possible opportunities available to them. We kept the EBacc combination of core academic GCSEs small enough, at either seven or eight, to allow sufficient time in the curriculum for pupils to study those subjects that interest them. That is why I have resisted calls for more subjects to be added to the EBacc.
Technical Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): We are transforming and reforming the technical qualifications available in schools and colleges, as my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools just said, to ensure that they are challenging and rigorous. We are creating clear technical education routes at the highest skill levels and will boost the capacity to deliver them through national colleges and institutes of technology in degree and higher apprenticeships. The post-16 skills plan that we published in July outlines the most radical reform of post-16 education in almost 70 years, by creating a high-quality technical track.
Technical Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Helen Olivia Bicknell Whately (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the commitment of the Secretary of State and the Minister to technical education, alongside more academic routes. Employers in Faversham are keen to support young people in apprenticeships, but they have told me that apprenticeships need to be more flexible and less bureaucratic, so will the Minister involve such employers as he develops the technical education system?
Technical Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend is exactly right. Technical education clearly needs to be aligned better with business needs. We are building on the apprenticeships reforms, whereby employers are designing the new apprenticeship standards to meet their needs, by giving employers a strong role in setting the standards across the 15 technical routes. They will advise on the knowledge, skills and behaviours that are needed, so that technical education has value for employers and learners alike, and is responsive to the requirements of the economy and employers.
Technical Education — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Robert Henry Halfon (Conservative, Centre-right): Clearly, we had to reform technical education, because there were far too many qualifications. There were over 13,000 qualifications, and engineering had something like 500. We are looking to offer students a technical pathway if that is what they choose, and we will look at the best qualifications for those technical pathways.
Adoption — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): More than 9,000 families in England have received bespoke therapeutic support via the adoption support fund that we set up just 17 months ago. Such support is often crucial in making a placement a long-term success. We are improving support in schools by extending access to virtual school heads and designated teachers, and we are developing new care pathways to meet the mental health needs of adopted children. The establishment of regional adoption agencies and the £14-million practice and improvement fund were designed to bring about better support for adoptive families.
Adoption — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Nusrat Munir Ul-Ghani (Conservative, Centre-right): At a recent inspection, the performance of East Sussex County Council’s adoption service was rated by Ofsted as outstanding. What does the Department do to ensure that best practice is shared, so that local authorities that are identified as requiring improvement learn from those that are providing an outstanding service?
Adoption — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): First, I congratulate East Sussex County Council on its Ofsted rating. I agree that we want others to learn from the best. The development of regional adoption agencies will see local authorities and voluntary adoption agencies working side by side to deliver excellent adoption services everywhere, with a strong focus on evidencing what actually works. We are setting up the aptly titled What Works centre for children’s social care, which will disseminate and promote best practice across the country.
Adoption — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Social Welfare
David John Barrington Burrowes (Conservative, Centre-right): I recognise the great role the Government and the Minister have played in championing and supporting adoption, so he will share my concern at the statistics his Department released on 29 September, which show a reduction for the second year running in the number of children being placed for adoption and being adopted. What is the main reason for those figures, and what action are the Government taking to turn them around?
Adoption — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): It is worth remembering that there were 4,690 adoptions in 2015-16—an increase of 35% on 2011-12. The latest figures, to which my hon. Friend refers, are due in large part to over-responses to the Re B-S judgment in 2013. They are disappointing figures. That is why, through the Children and Social Work Bill, we are amending legislation to improve the way decisions about long-term care options are taken, so that adoption is always pursued when it is in a child’s best interests. The Government’s adoption strategy, which we published in March, sets out plans to redesign the whole adoption system to ensure that we have the foundations in place to build a lasting change that benefits children.
Community Languages — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): After several months of negotiations, we have secured the exam boards’ commitment to continue to provide all but one of the existing language qualifications at GCSE and A-level. I place on record my thanks to Rod Bristow of Pearson and Andrew Hall of AQA for their help and support in securing a long-term future for those important qualifications. It is right that we have a range of language qualifications available, reflecting the diversity and dynamism of today’s Britain.
Community Languages — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Robert John Blackman (Conservative, Centre-right): I congratulate my hon. Friend on his answer and on the negotiations that have taken place Every year, thousands of young people from the age of five onwards begin learning Gujarati, Urdu or Punjabi, expecting it to lead to a long-term qualification. What steps can my hon. Friend take to make sure that those qualifications are secure not just for an interim period but in the long term, and that the teaching staff are available to provide that education?
Community Languages — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for his work in helping to secure those qualifications, particularly in Gujarati, working with the Consortium of Gujarati Schools. I am pleased that we have secured the continuation of qualifications in community languages. There will be no gap in provision—the existing qualifications will continue to be offered until 2018, when the new qualifications are introduced. We continue to support the recruitment of high-quality language teachers, including by offering bursaries of up to £25,000. There are also many successful and long-standing Saturday schools, which help to ensure that culture and languages continue to be taught.
Teachers’ Morale — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): We want motivated, enthusiastic teachers in our schools, and the latest OECD teaching and learning international survey reported that 82% of the teachers surveyed in England agreed or strongly agreed that they were satisfied with their job. We recognise the challenges for the profession, however, such as unnecessary workload, which we continue to address. The latest official statistics show that teacher retention rates one year after qualification have remained stable at around 90% for 20 years. In 2010, 70% of teachers were still teaching five years later, and more than 60% of teachers remained in the classroom 10 years after qualifying.
Teachers’ Morale — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): The figures are not dissimilar to those in other professions. We realise that there are workload challenges, which was why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. There were 44,000 responses, which we analysed carefully. Three top issues were raised: dialogic deep marking, data collection and the preparation of lessons. We addressed all three issues by setting up three working parties, led and staffed by experienced teachers and headteachers. They reported and made recommendations, which we accepted, and action has now been taken.
Teachers’ Morale — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Education shadow Front-Bench team. I understand the challenges of the teaching profession, and we are taking action. That is why we set up the workload challenge in 2014. The report published today by the Education Policy Institute is based on the 2013 TALIS. When that survey was published we looked at it very carefully, which is why we conducted the survey that we did and are taking action. The key thing is that 1.4 million more pupils are in good and outstanding schools today than there were in 2010, including 4,500 more in such schools in Trafford and 27,900 more in the city of Manchester.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): This Government are determined to make this a country that works for everyone, and education is at of the heart of that ambition. I have already had the opportunity to see some of the excellent work being carried out in our classrooms. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools has said, there are now 1.4 million more children in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010. The Department for Education has an expanded role, taking in higher education, further education and skills. That was reflected in my first announcement as Secretary of State of the six opportunity areas where we are going to trial a new approach to boosting attainment and outcomes in social mobility coldspots that have been identified by the Social Mobility Commission. We will work inside schools and outside them, with communities and businesses, to make sure that we can turbo charge those children’s opportunities.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Justine Greening (Conservative, Centre-right): That is not at all what the Higher Education and Research Bill seeks to do. It is about opening up the higher education sector, so that we have the next wave of institutions that can provide fantastic degrees, and about making sure that there is teaching excellence. It is a strong Bill that will move the sector forward for the first time in 25 years.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my constituents Councillor Sarah Aldridge, Donna Smith-Emes and the rest of the Aspire special school team on securing permission to proceed to the next stage in their bid to set up a free special school that will help meet the need in my constituency and the wider area for school places for children with high functioning autism?
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am of course more than happy to congratulate Sarah, Donna and the team on the progress they have made with the Aspire special school application, as well as on their clear commitment to children in their area with special educational needs and disability. The free schools programme has already supported the opening of 345 schools, including 13 schools with a specific focus on children with autism. I am aware that the Aspire special school aims to provide a further 112 places for pupils with autism and speech, language and communication needs.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Government Operations
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my constituents Councillor Sarah Aldridge, Donna Smith-Emes and the rest of the Aspire special school team on securing permission to proceed to the next stage in their bid to set up a free special school that will help meet the need in my constituency and the wider area for school places for children with high functioning autism?
Caroline Julia Dinenage (Conservative, Centre-right): I would like to take this opportunity to welcome the hon. Lady to her place on the Opposition Front Bench. I can reassure her that the funding formula that we have consulted on will make funding fairer, more transparent and more sustainable. Indeed, she is misinformed: our proposals mean that 88% of local authorities and their providers can expect to see their funding rates increase.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my constituents Councillor Sarah Aldridge, Donna Smith-Emes and the rest of the Aspire special school team on securing permission to proceed to the next stage in their bid to set up a free special school that will help meet the need in my constituency and the wider area for school places for children with high functioning autism?; As part of local democracy week, I visited two excellent primary schools, Hillcross and The Priory, in my constituency this morning. As I left, the headteacher of one of them asked me about the primary school assessment framework. Can the Minister confirm to the House how long he expects the transitional arrangements to be in place?
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): We will be announcing the response to the primary assessment arrangements shortly. It was important that we raised academic standards in our primary schools, and that is why we had a new curriculum introduced by 2014, after two or three years of preparation and consultation. We are raising standards in reading—there are now 147,000 more six-year-olds reading more effectively than they otherwise would be—and we are raising academic standards in maths and in grammar, punctuation and spelling. That is very important, and we will make further announcements about the details of the assessment soon.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my constituents Councillor Sarah Aldridge, Donna Smith-Emes and the rest of the Aspire special school team on securing permission to proceed to the next stage in their bid to set up a free special school that will help meet the need in my constituency and the wider area for school places for children with high functioning autism?; As part of local democracy week, I visited two excellent primary schools, Hillcross and The Priory, in my constituency this morning. As I left, the headteacher of one of them asked me about the primary school assessment framework. Can the Minister confirm to the House how long he expects the transitional arrangements to be in place?; In the Higher Education and Research Bill, the Government will allow universities simply to shut down if they fail in the HE marketplace, as though their role in local communities was a matter of no significance or concern to Government. That takes no account of the impact that closures will have on students and lecturers or the businesses and communities around them. Will the Government think again?
Jo Johnson (Conservative, Centre-right): The Higher Education and Research Bill will make student protection plans mandatory for the first time, putting in place systematic protection for students, which at present is very patchy and partial across our higher education system.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2016-10-10
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating my constituents Councillor Sarah Aldridge, Donna Smith-Emes and the rest of the Aspire special school team on securing permission to proceed to the next stage in their bid to set up a free special school that will help meet the need in my constituency and the wider area for school places for children with high functioning autism?; As part of local democracy week, I visited two excellent primary schools, Hillcross and The Priory, in my constituency this morning. As I left, the headteacher of one of them asked me about the primary school assessment framework. Can the Minister confirm to the House how long he expects the transitional arrangements to be in place?; In the Higher Education and Research Bill, the Government will allow universities simply to shut down if they fail in the HE marketplace, as though their role in local communities was a matter of no significance or concern to Government. That takes no account of the impact that closures will have on students and lecturers or the businesses and communities around them. Will the Government think again?
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that question; it is progressing extremely well. In 2012, 58% of six-year-olds passed the check. This year, 81% passed the check. That is a huge improvement in the quality of the teaching of reading in our primary schools.