Poorer children would be offered the chance to attend lessons on Saturday to help catch up with their middle-class peers  , the shadow schools secretary, Michael Gove, said today. The Conservatives would give English state schools the freedom to choose to have longer teaching hours and extra classes at the weekend; he told the Association of Teachers and Lecturers' annual conference. Gove said the move would help to close the achievement gap with richer children whose parents could afford extras such as tutoring and music lessons. He told delegates  in Manchester, "For children who come from homes where parents don't have the resources to provide  _ and cultural experiences, there are benefits in having those children in the learning environment, in school, for longer." "Parents would love to have schools starting earlier in some circumstances, and certainly going on later in the afternoon, given the reality of their working lives," he said. He held up the example of Kipp (Knowledge Is Power Program) schools in the US, which are often based in the poorest communities and open from 7:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, plus Saturdays.  But it would be up to schools to decide to offer longer hours, Gove added. Parents said Saturday classes could become a "badge of dishonor" if pupils were forced to go while teachers raised concerns about their workload. Margaret Morrissey, of Parents Outloud, said, "I think the suggestion the government made about one-to-one teaching for these kids would be a more preferable way of improving these children's performance. I'm just not sure whether taking away a child at weekends is actually going to make them cleverer in the week." The ATL's general secretary, Mary Bousted, said, "If we want Saturday schools, then we need more teachers doing the extra hours, not the same teachers working longer." Which of the following is TRUE?
Teachers may not like the program. Schools are trying to make profits. The program is already under way. The program is popular with children.