Oral question asked in the House of Commons, by David Leslie Taylor (Labour). It was answered on Thursday, 24 November 2005 on behalf of the Department for Education and Skills.

Setting/Streaming

Question: After more than 20 years as a parent and governor in secondary schools, I strongly support setting and welcome what the Government have done since 1997, but will the Minister decouple streaming and setting? Streaming can have negative effects. It can reinforce social class divisions, it can lead to bias and inconsistency in the allocation of pupils to sets and it can reduce the teaching expectations of the less able. Does my right hon. Friend agree?

Answer: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he speaks from knowledge. The advantage of setting is that it enables a sophisticated targeted approach for different subjects, where it would be appropriate in some cases and less so in others. That is why, for example, there is variance across subjects, with more than 80 per cent. of maths lessons being set, but probably less than 10 per cent. in classes such as physical education. It is for head teachers, with the support and guidance of Government, to make the decisions that, in their professional judgment, are right for their schools. That is the approach that the Government take—not trying to run schools from Whitehall, as I suspect the Opposition propose.

Secondary information