7 June 2021
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown highlights importance of getting educators to back Government’s education recovery programme

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown welcomes the Government’s announcement on the latest phase of the education recovery programme, but highlights the importance of ensuring the educators are fully committed to the package and the extra time they need to spend in the classroom.

Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)

I warmly welcome my right hon. Friend’s enthusiasm for making this package of catch-up measures work. In thanking all our teachers and educators for what they have done during the pandemic, does he agree that it will be vital to get those educators to commit to the package—to the extra time that they need to spend in the classroom from the early years right up to university—to make sure that it works?

Gavin Williamson (The Secretary of State for Education)

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is very important that we continue to drive the quality of teaching staff, making sure that they are there in the classroom, delivering that world-class face-to-face learning, and that we continue to learn the lessons of how we have driven improvement in attainment. We have seen England rise up the PISA rankings while some nations of the United Kingdom have, sadly, gone the other way as the result of a less thoughtful and considered approach.

Hansard