The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North (Mark Lancaster) on securing this debate. I understand the importance he attaches to education, and it was he who introduced me to Peter Barnes, an inspiring head teacher of the Oakgrove school in his constituency.
My hon. Friend is right to say that admissions policy is a sore subject. I would go a step further, and say that for many parents admissions are a cause of huge stress as they fight to secure a place in a good school when the education system provides insufficient good places. We have some of the best schools in the world, but we also have too many that are still struggling. According to Ofsted’s annual report, published on 23 November, 39% of secondary schools and 36% of primary schools are judged to be inadequate or merely satisfactory. If the admissions system is to be fair, all parents must have the opportunity to choose a good school, not just a satisfactory school. It is not good enough that nearly four in 10 secondary schools and over a third of primary schools do not yet reach that level.
Although 83% of parents secured their first-preference school in this year’s admissions round—in Milton Keynes the figure was 88%—that still means that, nationally, nearly one in five parents failed to achieve their first choice of school. It is worse in cities, with one in three missing out on their first choice in London and Birmingham. In some local authority areas, only 50% of parents manage to get their children into their first-preference schools. In 2008-09, more than 88,000 appeals were made by parents who were unhappy with the schools that had been allocated to them, and in 22% of cases the appeals were allowed.
That is the scale of the problem that the Government are charged with tackling. They must establish how to increase the number of good school places, and how to reduce the stress and unhappiness that arise every year during the admissions process. That problem is compounded by the fact that, according to the latest report by the Programme for International Student Assessment, this country’s educational ranking has fallen from seventh to 25th in reading, from eighth to 28th in science, and from fourth to 16th in maths.
We need to learn from the best-performing countries, which have been successful in closing the attainment gap between those from wealthier and poorer backgrounds while raising standards for all students. Many have drawn up comprehensive plans for school improvement that involve improving teacher quality, granting greater autonomy to the front line, modernising curriculums, making schools more accountable to their communities, harnessing detailed performance data, and encouraging professional collaboration.
Only through such whole-system reform can education be transformed to make our nation one of the world’s top performers, and that is what our White Paper “The Importance of Teaching”—which was mentioned by my hon. Friend—will allow us to do. It will provide greater autonomy for schools, an enhanced teaching profession with renewed professional status, a war on the bureaucratic burdens and red tape that sap motivation and energy, a real focus on raising standards in reading and arithmetic in primary schools, and a revised and slimmed-down national curriculum focused on core knowledge.
We also want to ease the burden on local authorities. Rather than their having to engage in activities such as setting up admissions forums or providing the schools adjudicator with an annual report because central Government says that they must, we want them to concentrate on making the admissions process as fair and straightforward as possible. As my hon. Friend intimated, we intend to simplify the admissions code, while still ensuring fair access to schools for all children.
As my hon. Friend said, local authorities have a critical role to play. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State describes them as our indispensable partners, and nowhere is that truer than in the co-ordination of fair admissions. Decisions about the allocation of school places can only be made locally. When schools are over-subscribed, the current system allows admission authorities to set their own criteria to decide place allocations, provided that they comply with the school admissions code and admissions legislation.
The use of catchment areas is a popular method, but there are others, including prioritisation based on travel distance, siblings—that too was mentioned by my hon. Friend—and feeder primary schools. The admissions code states explicitly that when catchment areas are used, they must always reflect the community served by the school and must never disadvantage particular social groups by, for example, excluding certain housing estates or addresses.
Those arrangements—as well as the timetable governing when parents apply for their children to start primary school or transfer to secondary school—have been in place for a number of years, but, as my hon. Friend pointed out, local authorities have been required to co-ordinate all in-year applications and offers only from this September as a result of changes made by the previous Government. On the one hand, this means that parents have to complete only a single application form to the local authority where they live, instead of having to go through the often disheartening process of contacting schools direct. It also allows local authorities to help more vulnerable families. On the other hand, it also makes for the kind of slow and bureaucratic process that my hon. Friend North described and delays the allocation of places. In recent months, the Department has had a steady flow of correspondence from local authorities and schools echoing those same concerns—which were also echoed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton South (James Wharton)—and arguing that schools should be able to offer or refuse a place directly. Admissions processes are an imprecise science, but having heard from my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes North and having received representations from admissions authorities and members of the public, I am convinced that we have to look again at this issue. It will be considered as part of the review and the simplification of the admissions code that we are currently undertaking.
My hon. Friend also raised the important issue of travel to and from school. In common, I am sure, with all Members of this House, we want as many children as possible to be able to walk or cycle to school wherever they can. It is healthier and reduces traffic congestion. I know from the Milton Keynes “Walk’n’Roll” scheme, launched in October as part of walk to school month, and the “cycle train” interventions, that the authority is committed to working with schools to achieve precisely that.
It is far from ideal for children to have to travel long distances. Parents want their local school to be a good school that they are happy for their child to attend, which goes back to my original point that we have to do more to create more good school places and to raise standards in underperforming schools. The statutory walking distance is currently 2 miles for pupils below the age of eight and 3 miles for those aged eight and over. Where a pupil is attending the nearest suitable school and it is further than the walking distances, free home to school transport has to be provided by the local authority. I am pleased to be able to say that today’s local government funding settlement announcement included the proposal to conduct a root-and-branch review of home-to-school transport policy in the new year. The current arrangements have remained largely unchanged since the Education Act 1944 and the Government believe they are no longer appropriate for today’s modern education system. In the meantime, I know that there are specific issues in Milton Keynes and that a number of pupils face long and difficult journeys, and I have listened carefully to the points made so effectively by my hon. Friend.
In summary, we have to improve our education system and we have to improve our admissions system. Fair and inclusive admissions are a vital component of a world-class education system, and I will ensure that our review of admissions addresses all the points my hon. Friend raised today.
Question put and agreed to.