Examination of Witnesses (Questions 300-302)
MR DON
TOUHIG, BRIGADIER
ANTHONY BRISTER,
MS LIZ
CASSIDY, MR
DAVID WADSWORTH
AND MS
KATHRYN FORSYTH
2 MAY 2006
Q300 Robert Key: I started my teaching
career, when I had a proper job, at a boarding school in Scotland
and I am a Scottish registered teacher. That is when I first came
across the Queen Victoria School in Dunblane which I have visited
with the Defence Committee in a previous Parliament, and I was
extremely impressed by it. I do not know the Duke of York's Royal
Military School in Dover. However, I am concerned about what happened
to the `de-agencifying' of the Queen Victoria School last year.
Is the same likely to happen to the Duke of York's Royal Military
School?
Ms Cassidy: There is certainly
a chance. So far as QVS is concerned, it was the commissioners
of the school, who are, if you like, roughly the equivalent of
the governors of the school, who chose to look at the advantages
and disadvantages of de-agencification and they concluded that
actually, on balance, they saw advantage which is why QVS was
de-agencified at the end of last year.
Q301 Robert Key: Are you satisfied
entirely with the performance of the two schools?
Ms Cassidy: With the performance
of the schools, they are both good in their way. The schools are
extremely different. QVS, one of its great strengths of course
is that it teaches to the Scottish curriculum, so it provides
a very valuable service for those who want to board children on
that curriculum. It is not a very large school, but it is also
an extremely supportive school, so it takes a lot of children
with distinct educational needs, I do not say a large proportion
of SEN, but it is a very supportive school with a good teacher:pupil
ratio and it provides a very supportive environment for children
who probably would not cope with standard alternative boarding
schools. It meets a real need for the Army in Scotland or for
all three Services indeed. The Duke of York's is a very different
school. They do not have quite the niche position. Over the last
ten years they have focused slightly more, I would say, on educational
output and they have improved their educational standards very
significantly over the past ten years. As you will see from the
league tables, they compete with some pretty decent independent
schools.
Q302 Robert Key: Minister, does the
Government have any plans to disengage from these two schools,
to see them go independent?
Mr Touhig: No, we have no plans
at all to disengage those schools.
Chairman: That is the sort of answer
we like and it allows us to finish at 12.31, so sorry to be a
minute late. Can I thank you all very much indeed for giving a
lot of help to the Committee in an inquiry of extreme importance.
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