15.6.2000

Local MP's Commons Question exposes Kingston's soaring secondary school class sizes

Kingston & Surbiton's Liberal Democrat MP, Edward Davey has condemned the Government for failing to tackle rising class sizes after he discovered that Kingston's secondary school children are being taught in increasingly crowded classes. Figures just announced by the Government, in response to a parliamentary question recently tabled by Mr Davey, show that secondary school classes have grown on average by almost 1.5 pupils since the general election.

Commenting on the latest class room figures, Mr Davey said,

"Having visited all the secondary schools in the Borough, the most obvious consequence of growing class sizes is that pupils receive less supervision and individual teaching support and I am greatly concerned that this will be detrimental to their academic achievements."

"The Government's own figures confirm that under Labour, this problem for our schools has got worse. In the recent budget they had the chance to provide more resources to tackle this problem; however they decided instead to opt for Tory tax cuts."

After seeing class sizes grow during the last Conservative Government, and the situation aggravated by Labour, it is clear that only the Liberal Democrats have the political will required to provide the resources to tackle this once and for all."