Education for 11 to 16 Year-olds (Committee Report)

Baroness Blower Excerpts

Friday 26th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Blower (Lab)]

My Lords, I am extremely pleased to participate in this debate and, in particular, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Johnson—about whom I will say more later. I regret that the date of this debate has meant that some committee members are unable to be here. I present in particular the apologies of my noble friend Lord Watson, who is unable to be present today due to a long-standing family commitment. Before coming to the details, let me say that it was a genuine pleasure to engage in the work of this committee, which was so ably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone. He encouraged all members to work together and adopt a collegiate approach to addressing the urgent issue of 11 to 16 education, and I believe that we all complied.

When we concluded that “urgent change” was needed, I do not think any of us were imagining that there would be a general election on 4 July this year. We have now both the response from the previous Government, which I also found disappointing, and the prospect of significant change from a new Government. There is a great deal in the report which should commend itself to those now in office. I am hopeful that the curriculum and assessment review announced by Bridget Phillipson will take account of the work we did, on which there was such an impressive measure of cross-party agreement and support.

Many headline aspirations of the Government’s review would be met by the recommendations—and there are many—in this report, none more so than the need for a broader curriculum. As the chair has already said, we heard from many witnesses, in person and in writing, that the constraints on the curriculum are such that many areas are squeezed or excluded from the experience of many young people; music, art, dance and drama, as well as PE, and technical and vocational subjects, are all suffering in this regard.

Earlier this week, I was pleased to attend the launch of the State of the Arts report. One of its chapters charts the decline of arts education in schools in England. One statistic is that, at GCSE,

“entries in arts subjects has declined by 47%”.

We heard from the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, about the individual subjects, but across the piece it has declined by 47% since 2010. This is not, I believe, where we would all agree that we should be. One of the speakers at the launch was the mother of the remarkable Kanneh-Mason children. Their talent and enthusiasm for music was nurtured and developed in a state school in Nottingham. Dr Kanneh expressed regret that future cohorts of children at that school would no longer enjoy such provision, due to budget cuts arising from both curriculum constraints and, of course, insufficient funding. Such cuts have been faced in all too many schools.

Curriculum breadth is important but so too is the vision and mission that all children and young people will leave school ready for life—of which work is a part—with the skills, attributes, behaviours and knowledge to thrive as emerging adults. There was much discussion in the committee of digital skills, which are clearly now essential, but also of team working, problem solving, and critical and creative thinking. These are all important and prized by employers—not to mention oracy, about which I received an interesting and useful briefing from an aptly named organisation, Voice 21.

I turn to a particular constraint on the curriculum, about which noble Lords have already heard: the so-called EBacc. The report rightly called for this to be abandoned; it should be. I recently read a book by Sam Freedman, a former advisor to Michael Gove. Noble Lords may know that, in my previous job at the National Union of Teachers, I rarely agreed with that particular former Secretary of State or his advisers, but I have learned something really important from Sam Freedman’s book, which I hope will increase the likelihood of the end of the EBacc. Mr Freedman, in writing about the comms grid, which he calls “the beast”, said:

“As an adviser in the Department for Education I had to feed the beast. Every September a ‘Back to School’ week appeared on the Grid, which meant three or four big policy announcements were required. In 2010 we hadn’t yet finished developing our policy plans so had to scrabble around for ideas. Over the past several months we had been considering an idea to reward pupils who did a particular mix of more traditional subjects at GCSE. But no proper work had been done by the department and we had not talked to any headteachers about it yet. However, the minister, Michael Gove, was due to go on the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme that Sunday and he needed something to say, so we decided it was the best idea we had. At the time the department was leaking a lot so the announcement was worked up by a tiny team of ministers, advisers and one or two trusted officials. There was no consultation and it was done in two days. That Sunday, Gove announced a new ‘English Baccalaureate’ to Marr (He called it that because it sounded European and The Guardian would like it.) In the years since the announcement, that policy has had an enormous impact on schools.”


Mr Freedman goes on to say that he did not think it was wholly bad but observes that it has had a distinctly deleterious effect on arts subjects.

Let me move on to the fact that the EBacc subjects appear in buckets—a rather inelegant way to express subject groupings. This clearly makes some combinations completely impossible. These buckets, and the overburdensome content of the subject syllabus at GCSE, put me in mind of the WB Yeats quote:

“Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire”.


I venture to suggest that not many of WB Yeats’s metaphorical fires are currently lit—or indeed that much fun is being had, as the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, often reminded the committee. Surely that should be the experience of education that we want for young people. Going forward, we will achieve this only if the curriculum and assessment review is bold and radical. We need to turn our attention—as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said in this Chamber only last week—to the model of curriculum that we want. This is not a time for tinkering with buckets.

I add, as I am sure my noble friend Lord Watson would have done if he had been here, that as Ofqual recognises that GCSE results are accurate only to within one grade, serious questions should be asked about their value. Assessment needs to be considered in the round. There are many more options than the near-total reliance on terminal exams. Presentational skills in writing and speaking can play a key role going forward in how we capture the learning and strengths of all our young people. There is ample experience in the education sector, including in universities, as well as in schools offering other types of qualifications such as the EPQ, of alternatives. We also need to consider the hitherto malign influence of Ofsted, and look to better and more professionally appropriate ways to evaluate the work of schools. The Beyond Ofsted inquiry, chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, has much to offer on this.

I repeat that it was a pleasure to be a member of this committee. I am particularly pleased to have worked alongside the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, who now regards me, he said last week, as a “good egg”, and I certainly returned the compliment. I commend this report to the Government and urge boldness. However, in thinking about change, even urgent change, we need to have regard to the investment required in teachers’ necessary professional development, the resources needed, and the need to ensure that the curriculum and assessment will be appropriate for all our young people. Our new Government have talked about a curriculum that reflects the issues and diversity in society, ensuring that all young people feel represented, are able to access it and can be successful. Surely that is the appropriate aspiration for our education system.