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Tag: Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth

  • Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2014-04-09.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they are doing to support the teaching of foreign languages in schools.

    Lord Nash

    The new national curriculum sets out clearly what should be taught to pupils, and gives teachers the flexibility to decide how to teach it. We expect schools to identify the support that they need to prepare for the new curriculum, recognising that different schools will face different challenges.

    We are allocating £350,000 to fund teaching school alliances and others to provide training on the new national curriculum for teachers of modern foreign languages in primary and secondary schools. Also, in terms of overall support for the new national curriculum, we have allocated some £1.9 million to teaching schools to lead curriculum change across and within their teaching school alliances.

    To support the introduction of a compulsory foreign language at key stage 2 (ages seven to 11) from September 2014, the independent Expert Group, chaired by a leading primary headteacher, has provided links to useful resources, which are hosted on the website of the Association for Language Learning.

    We are also making extensive use of social networking, including using high profile headteachers and others to raise the profile of the new curriculum, including for languages, through podcasts, webchats and blogs.

  • Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Cabinet Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2014-06-05.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they plan to take to tackle election malpractices.

    Lord Wallace of Saltaire

    The integrity of elections is crucial to our democracy. The Government is introducing measures to strengthen the electoral system through the introduction of Individual Electoral Registration which will make the register more accurate and secure.

    The Government will carefully consider any findings by the Electoral Commission in relation to the 22 May 2014 elections to determine whether any further measures may be needed to support electoral integrity.

  • Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2014-06-05.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking in relation to suppression of the marking of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square demonstrations by the government of China.

    Baroness Warsi

    We are concerned at reports of detentions in relation to the 25th anniversary of Tiananmen Square and raised our concerns about this with the Chinese authorities during the UK-China Human Rights Dialogue on 20 May. The Minister of State, my Rt. Hon. Friend the Member for East Devon (Mr Swire), raised this issue with the Chinese authorities on 19 May and made a statement on this issue on 21 May. We also fully support the EU statement of 28 May calling for the release of all those imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their views. We were pleased to see that on 5 June, the Chinese authorities released a number of those arrested after attending an event to commemorate the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989.

  • Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth – 2014 Parliamentary Question to the Department for Education

    The below Parliamentary question was asked by Lord Bourne of Aberystwyth on 2014-06-10.

    To ask Her Majesty’s Government what they are doing to ensure that British values are taught in schools.

    Lord Nash

    Independent schools, academies and free schools are already required to encourage pupils to respect British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

    We plan to strengthen the requirement placed on these types of school, to one of actively promoting British values. We will also ask Ofsted to change the Section 5 inspection framework to reflect this expectation, which will ensure that for the first time maintained schools are also properly held to account.