The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to my noble friend Lady Perry for giving us this opportunity for what has been a fascinating, wide-ranging and quick-fire debate—and it has been none the worse for that. I have more time than other noble Lords but I will try to rattle through to address as many of the points that have been raised as I can. Few know more about excellence than my noble friend—who is a former Chief Inspector of Schools, the vice-chancellor of a university and the head of a Cambridge college—so I think it is fair to say that her words carry particular weight.
Today there has been broad agreement that we want excellent education for all and not just a minority; that when we talk about excellence, we should mean excellence in vocational and technical education and not just academic; and that when we talk about education, we must never just mean exams, but everything that goes on in schools. That includes music, as my noble friend Lady Benjamin rightly argued; drama, art, sport; and the building of character and preparation for later life, as the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, reminded us. In that context, I loved the description given by the right reverend Prelate of the Resurrection Primary School up in Manchester, which seems to be exactly the kind of example of a broad range of education that good schools will provide for their children.
I do not agree that there has been a narrowing of definition about excellence, an issue which I know that the noble Lord, Lord Bichard, is concerned about. I can see the point that lies behind his concern—that in wanting to re-emphasise the importance of academic subjects, it might sometimes give the impression that that is what the Government are concerned about to the exclusion of all else. That is not the case, and I will do everything I can to reassure him and others that when we talk about the importance of education, it is not solely about academic education but all kinds of education in the broadest sense.
We know that there are many schools in the country that are delivering an education that we would all recognise as excellent. What is more, many of these are achieving excellence in areas of great disadvantage. Their pupils are going to our top universities. As my noble friend Lord Bates rightly argued, these are the beacons which show us what is possible with brilliant teaching, strong leadership and high aspiration—“great expectations” is a good phrase to stick in our minds. I believe that the answer to the question about university entrance lies in the schools, as my noble friend Lord Harris has demonstrated. I think he said that 90% of the children at one of his schools got an offer from a university this year.
Despite these beacons we also know—and we have to be honest about this—that too many children are far from enjoying an excellent standard of education. It is still the case that a third of pupils are leaving primary school not secure in reading, writing and mathematics. Some 250,000 children do not achieve five A* to C grades at GCSE, including English and maths. We know that the UK has fallen back in the PISA rankings and yet this relative decline has happened at a time when performance at GCSE has risen year on year. If nothing else, this tells us there is something wrong with our exam system that we need to examine.
We also know, as noble Lords have mentioned, that poor children do disproportionately worse. Just over one-third of children on free school meals got five A* to C GCSE grades, including English and maths. Only 4% of children on free school meals achieved the English baccalaureate in 2011, compared to 17% for non free-school-meal pupils. Only 22% of pupils with SEN achieved five A* to C GCSE grades, including English and maths, in 2011. My noble friend Lord Addington was right to remind us of this group. So far as identification of SEN is concerned, a new code of practice is due to be published in 2014. Officials are working with interested parties on that, but I am happy to clarify that further and if he would like, I will set up a meeting for him with my officials.
We also know, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howells of St Davids, reminded us, that across the country, black pupils in particular are not doing as well as they ought to be. Again, we heard from my noble friend Lord Harris that in many of his schools—which have a high concentration of black pupils who are, of course, well taught, motivated and supported from home—they are able to go on to achieve exactly as well as one would imagine that they would.
We know as well that, despite these problems, across the country brilliant things are being achieved by outstanding heads and inspiring teaching. There are more than 40 primaries across the country which have completely eliminated any attainment gap between rich and poor. At secondary level, schools like the Harris Academy in Bermondsey show us what can be done as well. There, 68% of pupils receive free school meals. Of those, 62% got their five A* to C GSCEs, including English and maths, against that national average of just over one-third.
We know as well that these results are not just some kind of one-off. Between 2010 and 2011, the results for ARK academies increased by 11% on average. Oasis—another chain—went up by 9.5%; ULT by 7.5%; and Harris by 13%. We have all heard many times in this House about the Mossbourne Academy. Last year, 82% of its pupils achieved 5 A* to C GCSEs; 10 of its pupils, I am glad to say, went off and received places at Cambridge University.
Across the board, performance in sponsored academies has improved at twice the rate of maintained schools, and the longer that academies are open, the better on average they do. So we know what can be achieved. The question which has properly been posed today is: what can Government do so that excellence can be spread more widely? I just want to touch on five main themes of the Government’s approach. They are: extending autonomy, improving accountability, tackling underperformance, restoring rigour to qualifications and, most importantly—because I accept fully that structural change cannot achieve anything without good people, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, reminded us—raising the quality of heads and the teaching profession more generally.
In introducing the academies programme, the last Government rightly recognised that greater autonomy helps to raise educational performance. We have taken that principle and developed it, trying to extend the space in which professionals can make their own decisions—what my noble friend Lady Perry rightly called “extending trust”.
I agree strongly with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, about resisting pressure to stick more things in the national curriculum because we do not dare quite trust the professionals. I also agree with what my noble friend Lady Wheatcroft said about the importance of trusting professionals to care for children in the round and, particularly, the importance of policies to make it easier for teachers to address issues to do with behaviour.
The response from governing bodies and heads to the opportunity to become academies has been overwhelming. There are nearly 2,400 open academies in England. More than 55% of all secondary schools in England are either open as academies or this is in the pipeline. The vast majority of those have chosen to do this, which shows the appetite within the system and the profession for greater independence. I think that that partly addresses the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford. More and more of those academies are joining together to help raise performance in other schools. They are forming clusters to share good practice to support each other. There are more than 300 different chains and the fastest-growing group of new academy sponsors working to raise standards are outstanding schools which have converted to academies.
Alongside academies we have free schools, including independent schools coming into the maintained sector, UTCs and studio schools. Some people said that no one would want to take up the challenge of opening new schools. I think that they underestimated the passion of teachers and local groups to help children. One of my favourite examples is Cuckoo Hall in Enfield where, this year, 94% of pupils achieved level 4 in English and Maths. Its outstanding head turned around a failing school a few years ago. In the past two years she has opened two new primary free schools in the same area, where there is a big pressure on basic need, and she is now planning to open a secondary school.
As has already been argued, greater autonomy has to go hand in hand with greater accountability. Part of the way in which we have been doing that is through publishing more data so that parents and others can see for themselves how schools are doing. I am happy to talk to my noble friend Lord Lucas about his ideas. My noble friend Lady Brinton talked about the importance of comparable information between different kinds of institution. I agree with her about that. If we are trying to get to a situation where parents and students are able to make choices, they need to be able to do so on the basis of comparable data. We are committed to developing the destination measures, which I think she mentioned, and I would be happy to get someone to update her precisely on where we have got to on that. It has also partly been about more data, as well as through revising our inspection arrangements. The new performance tables had four times as much data as in the past and last year. Importantly, they showed not just attainment but the progress of pupils in different prior attainment groups.
Ofsted’s new framework will also help us to raise the bar. It not only focuses on the four core elements of a successful school; it puts all schools that are currently no better than satisfactory on notice that they need to work hard to improve. Schools that do not show that improvement will be subject to more frequent inspections and potentially moved into special measures.
We have also been looking at the whole question of governance, which is an area that merits more study. We have been trying to make governors’ lives easier to free them up to concentrate on key strategic decisions because the governing body of a school has a vital role in terms of accountability. We are making it easier for them to recruit governors on the basis of skills. We also introduced a new scheme for national leaders of governance modelled on the very successful national leaders of education, which we hope to double next year.
There has been some discussion already about changes to the curriculum and qualifications. I believe that if employers are not confident in the value of qualifications or they complain about standards of literacy and numeracy, and if we have universities which question the depth of knowledge that our brightest children have compared with students coming to British universities from overseas, we cannot pretend that all is well.
Something that worried us early on was the sharp fall in the number of children taking modern foreign languages, history or geography at GCSE. The percentage taking modern foreign languages had fallen from 76% to 43% between 2002 and 2010. The number taking history fell from 32% to 31% and those taking geography fell to 26%. That was the background to our announcement that we would introduce the new performance measure, the EBacc, which would show the percentage of pupils getting GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, history or geography and a modern foreign language. We chose those subjects because we think that they best equip young people to apply to the good universities.
So far, it seems to have had an effect. Compared to the 22% who took EBacc subjects in 2011, we estimate that 46% will be studying them in 2013 and 49% by 2014. That, interestingly, would take us back to a striking figure because in 1997, about 50% of pupils were studying what we now classify as the EBacc subjects.
I very much agree with the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, about the importance of subjects and activities other than the EBacc. That is one of the reasons why, by restricting them to a core, we hope to leave space for other subjects—including important areas such as design, for example, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker.
We are consulting on the introduction of a new qualification to replace GCSEs in each of the core academic subjects that make up the English baccalaureate. We will end the competition between different exam boards which has led to a race to the bottom, a move which has been generally welcomed. We will be holding a competition to identify the most ambitious qualifications, benchmarked to the world’s best and offered by a single awarding organisation.
On the specific issue about RE raised by the right reverend Prelate and also by my noble friend Lady Perry, I understand the point. I am glad to say that the numbers taking RE at GCSE increased by 7.7% this year, after increasing by 10% last year. Although I know that there are practical concerns, there has not been a falling off of young people wanting to study RE. Indeed, the opposite is true.
We also want to make sure that A-levels are rigorous and challenging, compare to the best qualifications in the world and command the respect of our leading universities. We want universities to have a greater role in their design and development. Ofqual has consulted on changes to A-levels and is considering next steps. No decisions have yet been taken but I noted the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Broers. I also agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, said about the importance of coherence when we look at qualifications and exam systems.
Alison Wolf’s review of vocational education found that between a quarter and a third of 16 to 19 year-olds were on courses which led children into dead-ends. I know that her recommendations for raising the quality of vocational qualifications were broadly welcomed across the House at the time. I was grateful for the comments made by my noble friend Lord Lingfield about the importance of further education.
We have seen a rapid growth in the size of the apprenticeship programme, which has grown from 240,000 to 450,000, but we must work to improve the quality of those apprenticeships, which we will do through a review into standards led by employers. We are delivering high-quality technical education through the new university technical colleges, of which my noble friend Lord Baker spoke with his customary passion. Two years ago there was one UTC open. By 2014, we expect to have more than 30. I have the figure of 90 ringing in my ears, as well as my noble friend’s almost daily exhortation to go further faster.
I was interested in the suggestion made by my noble friend Lord Lloyd-Webber about how we can dramatise the importance of practical and technical skills better. I am grateful to my noble friend Lady Brinton for telling the House how many ways of doing that are under way. However, that is an issue that a number of noble Lords probably would like to discuss between themselves further.
Alongside UTCs, studio schools have also been developing at pace. Two years ago, there were just two and today there are 16. By next September, I hope that we will double that again. These schools bridge the worlds of work and school, providing a vocational alternative alongside good academic qualifications and offering high-quality work experience which is paid for after the age of 16.
I have to say to my noble friend Lady Buscombe that these schools are full of confident, well presented children who are keen to get on. I support the work of the charity Springboard, which she and my noble friend Lord Lexden mentioned. I applaud the work he referred to as regards trying to bring about closer co-operation between the independent and maintained sectors.
The pupil premium has an important role to play in tackling underperformance. As regards how that is working so far, the recent study by Ofsted was a snapshot. We will get the full report next year. From this September schools will have to publish how they are spending that money. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, that it is important to demonstrate the value of the pupil premium. However, in approaching that, it is also important that we do not clog up the system too much with reintroducing a new layer of prescription. We want schools to work out how best to spend it but also to share good practice widely.
My noble friend Lady Walmsley, among others, talked about the importance of the early years. I will reflect on the points that she made. In tackling underperformance, we have accelerated the focus that we have placed on underperformance in primary schools, building on the work of the previous Government on secondary schools. As regards the quality of the profession, our goal is a self-supporting and self-improving system where schools learn from outstanding schools and heads and where outstanding teachers spread good practice. I agree with what my noble friend Lord Lucas said about the importance of this. That is why we are creating a national network of teaching schools to improve the capacity for schools to take the lead in the training and development of teachers, building up to 500 of those by 2014-15.
We are increasing the numbers of national leaders of education to 1,000 by 2015. We are supporting Teach First, a brilliant innovation which came about under the previous Government, to expand to 1,500 trainees in 2014-15. We are expanding the Future Leaders and Teaching Leaders programmes to develop many more potential leaders of the future. We are raising the bar on entry to the profession. We are paying bursaries of up to £20,000 to attract the best graduates into the teaching profession, especially into the important shortage subjects such as physics and other science subjects which were raised by the noble Lord, Lord Rees of Ludlow. I was also interested to hear the remarks he made about the role that universities can play in helping to address some of these issues.
All of us who visit schools know that it is inspiring heads and teachers with high expectations for their children who aim for and achieve excellence. We are seeking to support them by increasing their professional freedom, improving accountability, refocusing inspection, reforming qualifications and encouraging more great people—
Lord Lea of Crondall
I am grateful to the Minister for giving way, and I appreciate that he has to get through his prepared speech, but I should point to his absence of reference to the fact that Alan Milburn has recommended that the Government reverse their policy on the abolition of the education maintenance allowance. Alan Milburn stated that that creates a difficulty in terms of,
“helping poorer 16- to 17-year-olds stay on at school”.
What about that group?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope that I addressed the main point raised by Mr Milburn. The route to getting more children from disadvantaged backgrounds into university is through schools. I think a number of people have accepted that the cost of the EMA—the best part of £560 million—was not sustainable. It was going to 40% of children but was originally intended to be targeted on a smaller group. The replacement that we have put in place is sufficient to pay a comparable sum to all the children who are in receipt of free school meals.
In conclusion, I know that there is a long way to go. I hope there is no complacency or what one noble Lord referred to as a self-congratulatory tone, but I believe that excellent schools are showing us the way forward, and I believe that the building blocks for further progress are in place.