argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Young Carers — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): Since 2011 we have worked with the Children’s Society and the Carers Trust to develop good practice materials for schools in order to increase teachers’ awareness of issues affecting young carers, including those relating to identification. In preparation for the introduction of the new young carers duty this April, we are planning to invite bids for the development of further materials to help school staff to understand and respond better to the needs of young carers.
Young Carers — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am aware of the superb work that is done by the Blackpool carers centre in helping young carers, many of whom are coping with parents with addictions. The identification of those carers, and the support that we give them, are vital to ensuring that they have the childhood that they deserve, at the same time as taking on a role that is often beyond their years. That is why we have introduced the new duty, and why we are working closely with charities in Blackpool and in Cheshire East—where I have also met young carers—to ensure that they continue to receive the support that we need. However, when we inspect those services, we need to be confident that the outcomes for young carers are measured in a way that demonstrates that the duty that we have introduced is having a discernible effect, and we continue to pay attention to that.
Children’s Services — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman, and the whole purpose of trying to bring additional expertise into children’s services is that we know that, sadly, there are still too many parts of the country where children are not being served adequately by those who are meant to be there to protect them. We want to encompass the whole range of expertise that is available in order to tackle that issue, but of course we need stringent checks in place to make sure that no one involved in such advisory roles has been doing what he describes, and I will happily write to him with further details of how we are ensuring that that is the case.
Children’s Services — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Anthony Edward Timpson (Conservative, Centre-right): I am tempted not to give a response at all, Mr Speaker, and I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has been tempted down that line of questioning. He knows full well that our intervention, whether in Birmingham, Doncaster or any other local authority, has had a positive effect: 29 of those local authorities where we have had direct intervention since 2010 have come out of that process. However, we need to make sure that where there is ingrained failure in children’s services we do all we can to bring those services up to scratch, and I am not going to shy away from making decisions that ensure children across this country have better services, better protection and better lives.
Nursery Care — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.; What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The cost of some of the most popular forms of child care has come down. We have seen that with nurseries, for example: the cost of nurseries is down by 2%, and the cost of childminders is down by 13%. But we are not complacent: we are funding 15 hours of free child care for all three and four-year-olds and all disadvantaged two-year-olds, and we are introducing tax-free child care for working families. This should be compared with the record of the previous Government, under which the cost of child care went up by 50% between 2002 and 2010.
Nursery Care — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.; What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): The research by 4Children to which the hon. Lady refers confirms that we have a clear plan for child care. As a result of our work, more families than ever before in this country are now eligible for free child care. She refers to the Labour party plan to extend free child care for three and four-year-olds from 15 to 25 hours, but the Labour party is the only party that thinks a clear plan is where it decides to fund a pledge through a bank levy that it has already spent 11 times. That is not a clear plan.
Nursery Care — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.; What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): I refer the hon. Gentleman to my earlier answer, just in case he was on autopilot and asking a Whip’s question: it is not possible to fund a pledge with a bank levy that has already been spent 11 times. This Government have a clear plan for child care. Over the course of this Parliament we are spending an extra billion pounds on not just three and four-year olds, because children are not only three and four; parents need child care for children below the age of three and for children older than three and four. That is why we have a clear plan, because we have a strong economy.
Nursery Care — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Social Welfare
Questions: What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.; What assessment she has made of the effect of recent changes in child care costs on the affordability of nursery care for families on low and medium incomes.
Samuel Phillip Gyimah (Conservative, Centre-right): Just in case the hon. Lady was not listening, let me say that child care costs went up by 50% under the last Labour Government, whereas under the current Government child care costs have stabilised and are falling for some of the most popular forms of child care. In addition, we are saving families who have three and four-year-olds £370 a year per child; we are saving disadvantaged families £2,300 a year per child through the free entitlement for two-year-olds; and tax-free child care will save families up to £2,000 per child per year from this autumn. That is because we have a clear plan, funded because we have a strong economy. Labour’s plan is not funded.
Teachers (Work Loads and Teaching Time) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): High-quality teaching is the single most important school-based factor determining how well pupils achieve. This Government are committed to supporting the profession, and reducing unnecessary work load is an absolute priority. We have already reduced the burden from the centre by increasing autonomy and streamlining unnecessary paperwork, and we have received more than 44,000 responses to the work load challenge, which asked teachers to share their experience and ideas. We are discussing the results with teachers and unions, and an action plan will be published shortly.
Teachers (Work Loads and Teaching Time) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Andrew James Bridgen (Conservative, Centre-right): Does my right hon. Friend agree that what teachers need from a Secretary of State is someone who listens to their concerns and respects their professionalism, as opposed to the patronising attitude of the shadow Secretary of State, whose latest gimmick is asking teachers to take an oath?
Teachers (Work Loads and Teaching Time) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that it is not my job to tell teachers how to do theirs. This Government are committed to treating teachers as mature and confident professionals. It was on the "Left Foot Forward" blog that somebody had written: "It is genuinely difficult to fathom what was going through Tristram Hunt’s mind when he decided that a Hippocratic oath for teachers was a good idea." I suggest that the shadow Secretary of State might want to look at the reaction on social media to his Hippocratic oath.
Teachers (Work Loads and Teaching Time) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): In May, the Conservative party will be committing to have the highest-qualified teaching profession ever, something we have already achieved under this Government. We now have more teachers with 2:1 or first degrees in our schools, and the successful initial teacher training system, as Andrew Carter has reported in his review today—[Interruption.] If the Labour party wants to talk about unqualified teachers, it ought to look at the shadow Secretary of State, who teaches in his local schools as an unqualified teacher.
Faith Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): Church and faith schools have made a significant contribution to the education system in England for hundreds of years. Many of the best performing schools in our country are church and faith schools. Parents of all faiths and none value these schools for the quality of the education and for their strong ethos, and I am a great supporter of them.
Faith Schools — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): Knowing the right hon. Gentleman, I suspect that he will have a photograph taken of him with the children painting their cards and it will appear in the Leicester Mercury very shortly. I would be delighted to join him if that is the case. He will know that all applications for new schools are studied rigorously by the Department and by colleagues. We have to follow a process, but I will look forward to hearing more about that application in due course.
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): As part of our plan for education, I want to ensure that all young people are prepared for life in modern Britain. I am committed to ensuring that all young people develop a range of character attributes such as resilience and grit, which underpin success in education and employment. My Department is investing £5 million to expand capacity and character education, to build evidence of what works and to deliver a national award scheme to recognise existing excellence.
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Pauline Elizabeth Latham (Conservative, Centre-right): I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. As she will be aware, one school in my constituency recently had its successes recognised in the Tatler and came in the top 22 in the country. Will she tell the House what steps her Department is taking to encourage more schools to follow its example?
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): We want to recognise and share excellent practice in schools in Mid Derbyshire and across the country. I recognise the work that my hon. Friend does with her local schools. I encourage any school doing good work in this area to apply for the character awards, which I have mentioned. Applications close on 30 January, and I look forward to hearing how schools up and down the country are already working to develop well-rounded young individuals.
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I understand that several hon. Members are celebrating their birthdays in the House today, but we would be here for a long time if I named them all. I am trying to remember some of their constituencies. There is my right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir John Stanley) and my hon. Friend the Member for Bosworth (David Tredinnick). I have not quite memorised all the names and constituencies in the way that you have, Mr Speaker I have met Professor Arthur and I think that he is doing fantastic work in Birmingham and I look forward to him taking part in our work on building the plans for character education in our schools.
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): The hon. Gentleman is right that those are of course important skills that we would like to see in all our young people. In the work of the Department I need to balance demands for additional subjects and for academic qualifications, but many schools already teach life-saving skills. As a Department, we have recently negotiated a contract so that schools can obtain defibrillators at reasonable rates and they will of course want to train their pupils on how to use them.
Schools (Character Development) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): Those qualifications did not help the young person who took them to get work and were not valued by employers. The qualities we are talking about run all the way through education at all ages and are important skills, but having spoken to providers of ASDAN qualifications in my constituency, I know that other skills and qualifications give those young people the best start in life and the greatest credibility with employers.
Funding Formula (Schools) — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Questions: What progress her Department is making on delivering a fair and transparent funding formula for schools and supporting areas that have been historically underfunded.
Robin Caspar Walker (Conservative, Centre-right): I am grateful to the Minister for that answer and this Government have done more than any other to address long-standing flaws in our school funding system and to commit to fairer funding. We have started the process, as my right hon. Friend says, but it still has further to go. Even with the £6.5 million for Worcestershire, local schools tell me that they are struggling to manage cost pressures. Is my right hon. Friend committed not just to the creation of, but the delivery of, a fair and transparent formula in the lifetime of the next Parliament?
Vocational Education — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (Conservative, Centre-right): We have removed thousands of low-quality qualifications from performance league tables, introduced the requirement to carry on studying English and maths for young people who have not yet achieved Cs at GCSE and invested in 2 million high-quality apprenticeships since 2010.
Vocational Education — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Labor
Nicholas Edward Coleridge Boles (Conservative, Centre-right): I had the great pleasure of meeting the 2 millionth apprentice, a young woman working in an extraordinary business whose work I could not understand because it was so complicated. She is doing something very clever in engineering near Oxford in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood). We are supporting smaller employers who create apprenticeships with a grant worth £1,500 and we are working closely with the fantastic apprenticeship ambassador network, led by David Meller and championed in this House by my hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Andrew Jones) and the hon. Member for Burnley (Gordon Birtwistle)—[Interruption.] Not that David Mellor.
Regional Schools Commissioners — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): In the four months since the eight regional schools commissioners took up their responsibilities for the academies and free schools in their regions, they have been working efficiently with their head teacher boards to inject experience, expertise and valuable local knowledge into the management of the academy system, playing a vital role in the development of a self-improving school system.
Regional Schools Commissioners — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Craig Whittaker (Conservative, Centre-right): Prior to the schools commissioners being in place, it was my experience that the Department’s approach to failing academies was sometimes inconsistent. How does the Minister envisage that schools commissioners will apply a consistent approach to drive up standards and make academies more accountable?
Regional Schools Commissioners — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): Given their proximity to schools that are underperforming and their local knowledge, regional schools commissioners will act far more swiftly in taking failing schools to academy status than we have seen to date. That is the purpose of the regional schools commissioners, and I am confident that we will see a faster and smoother process of conversion to academy status.
Bullying — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): This Government take bullying very seriously. We have strengthened teachers’ powers to tackle bullying, we have provided anti-bullying advice for schools, we have provided approximately £4 million of funding to anti-bullying charities and announced a further £2 million to address homophobic bullying, and we have included internet safety in the national curriculum. According to our longitudinal study of young people published in November last year, around 30,000 fewer young people are being bullied than 10 years ago in England.
Bullying — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Stuart James Andrew (Conservative, Centre-right): The ultimate consequence of bullying can be that the victim takes their own life, as a friend unfortunately did when I was at school. Given that these days cyber-bullying is an additional pressure for victims, what advice and support does my hon. Friend’s Department offer to teachers to deal specifically with that problem?
Bullying — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): My hon. Friend makes an important point. This is an increasing trend and we have to make it very clear in our schools that this form of behaviour in our schools is unacceptable. The guidance issued by the Department makes it clear that issues such as consent have to be taught in our sex and relationship education lessons.
Emergency Life-saving Skills — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): Three in a row. Schools are free to teach emergency life-saving skills and may choose to do so as part of personal, social, health and economic education. The Department, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, is encouraging schools to purchase automated external defibrillators and has made arrangements to help them do so at a competitive price. We have also published a guide to defibrillators on school premises, in which we suggest that schools may wish to consider offering cardiopulmonary resuscitation training throughout the school.
Emergency Life-saving Skills — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I agree that first aid and life-saving skills are very important, but the Government do not believe that it should be a statutory requirement for schools to teach those skills. We trust schools to make their own decisions about what is best in their circumstances. Many schools do choose to teach these skills, working with organisations such as the British Heart Foundation or St John Ambulance. I would be delighted to meet my hon. Friend to consider what more can be done to promote these programmes in schools.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): This is the first Education Question Time since the terrible massacre in Peshawar. I am sure that the House will want to offer our support to the brave students and teachers who have gone back to the school, and to offer our condolences to those who lost loved ones Since the last Question Time, my Department has announced plans to back a college of teaching, if that is what the profession chooses to opt for. Today we have published the Carter review of initial teacher training, as well as revised head teacher standards developed by those in the profession themselves.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Oliver Heald (Conservative, Centre-right): I join in the condolences expressed by my right hon. Friend Given the vital importance of budgeting and money management in tackling personal debt, does my right hon. Friend agree that numeracy is more important than ever? Will she update the House on what progress is being made in our schools in this vital area?
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree that numeracy is a critical life skill. Our new primary maths curriculum places a greater focus on understanding numbers and on calculation skills. To reinforce that, we have removed calculators from national curriculum tests, and new maths GCSEs will be more challenging and will ensure vital numeracy skills. As my hon. Friend the Minister for Skills and Equalities has said, young people beyond the age of 16 without a good pass at GCSE are now required to continue with mathematics, and for those with a grade C or above, new core maths qualifications that include financial literacy will improve numeracy further.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Nicky Morgan (Conservative, Centre-right): I appreciate that the hon. Gentleman was not Secretary of State in the previous Labour Government, but let me remind him that they took away 200,000 primary places at a time of a baby boom, a rising population, and the uncontrolled immigration that took place under them. There are 11,400 fewer pupils in primary schools operating over their agreed capacity since 2010, and 31,900 fewer such pupils in secondary schools. If he wants to talk about this Government’s approach, he should look at the chaos created by the previous Government’s failure to plan for an increase in the population.
Topical Questions — House of Commons, 2015-01-19
Topic: Education
Questions: Will my hon. Friend join me in congratulating teachers and pupils at primary schools across Ealing on their latest key stage 2 standard assessment test results, which have taken them well above average? It is particularly good to note that pupils from the most disadvantaged backgrounds have done especially well this year.
Nicolas John Gibb (Conservative, Centre-right): I happily join my hon. Friend in congratulating primary schools in her constituency on that achievement. It is true that during the last few years we have narrowed the attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds. In particular, I cite key stage 2 reading, writing and maths figures, where we closed the gap by one percentage point between 2013 and 2014, which is a staggering achievement, but there is more to do.