Home Schooling
Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Baroness Barran
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I put on record our thanks to the right reverend Prelate for the work that he will be doing in his diocese to support the communities which will be struggling, especially right now, and coming to terms with the consequences of the trial. With regard to the proposals put forward by the right reverend Prelate, we are about to start consultation on the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which was introduced in the other place just this week. Consultations will continue in this place, and I look forward to discussing it with him. In advance of such discussions on the legislation, I have spoken to the Minister responsible in the other place, and she has offered to host a round table immediately after Christmas with noble Lords who are interested so that we can discuss these issues in detail in a more appropriate setting.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I echo the Minister’s sentiments about the tragic death of Sara Sharif and thank her for starting her Answer in that way. On these Benches, we welcome very much the proposal in the new Bill that children who are subject to a plan or an investigation will not be allowed to be home educated. I wonder whether she could commit to going back and talking to her honourable friend the Minister for Children and Families, urging her to write to every director of children’s services now to establish how many children who are home schooled currently are on the child protection register or subject to an investigation, and make sure that we check up on their safety.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, who has great experience from her previous role in engaging with this. I reassure your Lordships’ House that local authorities are already actively engaged in this area. On the safeguarding statistics related to home education, of the 111,700 children in home education, 1% were children in need, while less than 0.5% were recorded as having a child protection plan or being a looked-after child. This compares with 3% of children in need, 0.4% having a child protection plan and 0.7% being looked-after children among the wider child population. We have the statistics, but, obviously, all local authorities have an onus to make sure that children are safe.
Schools: Music and Drama Access
Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Baroness Barran
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
The terms of reference of the curriculum and assessment review currently being undertaken have been published on the government website. There is an onus to encourage how we look to make sure that students have the right skills sets and tools in the round, including music, art and drama.
Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, the Minister talked about the Government delivering a cutting-edge curriculum, which slightly puts gloom in the hearts of those of us who have watched the cutting-edge curriculum in Scotland implode and children there suffer as a result. Maybe she could spell out to the House why the same will not happen here.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
I am very disappointed in the tone of the question. We have requested and engaged Professor Becky Francis to come forward and look at this in the round. We are using evidence gathered by the last two reviews on education and culture, which the noble Baroness was involved with. We look forward to working with key partners as soon as we have the outcome of the review. What is delivered next will be of key importance.
Childcare Entitlements
Debate between Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent and Baroness Barran(7 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
On building capacity, the department has awarded £100 million to local authorities to help expand capacity. On the quality of space, as the noble Baroness knows, early years settings are regulated by Ofsted. It has very clear standards that they have to meet, and we expect them to meet them.
Baroness Anderson of Stoke-on-Trent (Lab)
My Lords, the NAO report suggests that many of the issues and challenges that we have heard about this evening would have been mitigated if the Government had not cancelled the £35 million pilot. I wonder whether the Minister can tell us why we cancelled the pilot and what assessment has been made for phases 2 and 3 of the scheme, having not done it.
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Baroness hits on perhaps the one thing on which we do not accept the recommendation from the National Audit Office. We made a decision not to run the pilot because we did not think that it would contribute meaningfully to readiness or provide value for money. The key decision we took was that this would be a phased rollout, so that local authorities, providers and parents all had time to adapt. We are continuing to test and review delivery on an ongoing basis; we are piloting different interventions to support workforce expansion through financial incentives in 20 local authorities. What we found from the evaluation of the 2017 rollout was that providers were willing to offer more hours, and were able to offer sufficient hours, and that there were no adverse impacts on other provision. We also found that providers were really flexible. We are very fortunate to have providers that are so focused on outcomes for parents and, of course, for their children.