To ask the Secretary of State for Education if he will make a statement on the statutory duties and responsibilities on head teachers; and what monitoring is carried out to see they are fulfilled.

Head teachers of maintained schools, including self-governing—grant-maintained—schools, have statutory responsibility for a number of functions relating to the organisation and management of the school, the discipline of its pupils and the curriculum. In undertaking these functions, they are accountable in the first instance to the governing body of the school and to the local education authority in those schools which it maintains. Parents also have a formal opportunity to discuss the way the head teacher has carried out his or her duties, at the annual meeting which governors must hold for parents. Independent inspections of schools every four years under the Education (Schools) Act 1992 will report on quality and standards in schools, including how effectively they discharge their statutory functions. Reports and governors' action plans will be published.