Secondary Schools (Attainment)

Answer: There has been repeated discussion on these matters. I have attempted to correct the hon. Gentleman on his statistical failings, but he keeps refusing to listen. What he does in his comparisons is to look only at the children on free school meals who go to schools. He repeatedly ignores the performance of young people on free school meals who go to further education colleges. His statistics therefore always give a very unfair and biased picture of what is going on, which I guess must account for why he keeps saying that his school reforms would lead to rising standards, while the head of the Swedish equivalent of Ofsted has said that they would lead to falling standards and greater inequality. I think that he should do his homework a little bit better.

This is an answer to the Oral question asked on Monday, 8 March 2010 by Lord Gove (Conservative).

Question: The Secretary of State will be aware that, in the last year for which we have figures, of the 80,000 children who were eligible for free school meals—the very poorest—only 45 got to Oxford or Cambridge. Why are so many poor children being failed by Labour?

Secondary information