§ Mr. Spriggsasked the Secretary of State for Education and Science if she will indicate further what she meant by her reference to the increasing importance to be given by the Government to ways of transferring teachers between primary and secondary schools, when she addressed the North of England Education Conference in York, in January 1978.
§ Mrs. Shirley WilliamsIn my speech on 6th January, a copy of which is in the Library, I raised some questions about the implications of a falling school population—a fall which affects primary schools first and subsequently secondary schools. In the interests of making the best use of our teachers, we should explore what potential there is for teachers who have been trained for work in primary schools to move to secondary school teaching, and what part retraining can play in helping them to make this move. I intend to examine these questions with the local authorities and the teachers' organisations.