Higher Education: Creative Courses
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Smith of Malvern(5 days, 19 hours ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I agree with the noble Earl’s view of the significance and importance of creative and arts subjects. We need to ensure there is a pipeline of young people with those interests and expertise who are then able to go further. I also share the concern he identified about the way the financial instability in the higher education system is causing some of those courses to be part of the cuts that universities are being forced to make. Of course, the situation would not be as bad had the previous Government not made a 50% cut in 2021 to the strategic priority grant funding for creative subjects. We have begun to increase that funding this year, as I have outlined, but there is clearly more that we need to do on top of what we have done to stabilise higher education funding to ensure that the opportunities the noble Earl refers to are available for all young people, with all the benefits they bring not only to them but to our creative industries, economy, culture and society.
Recruitment of Teachers
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Smith of Malvern(3 weeks, 4 days ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I thank the noble Baroness for her question. The first thing we can be clear about is that this target was neither made nor met by the previous Government. Secondly, we are committed to recruiting an additional 6,500 new expert teachers across our schools, both mainstream and specialist, and our colleges over the course of this Parliament. Thirdly, she is absolutely right that retention is key. This is why the targeted retention incentive, worth up to £6,000 after tax per year for early career teachers, is being provided in key STEM and technical subjects, in disadvantaged schools and all FE colleges.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend will agree that the curriculum and assessment review will be a very important factor in recruitment and retention of teachers. Can she update the House on that? Does she agree that there is an earnest hope that the results of the curriculum and assessment review will lead to much greater teacher agency, which will in itself improve retention and probably recruitment?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I strongly agree with my noble friend. The curriculum and assessment review is important to ensure that teachers have a curriculum that promotes high standards in reading, writing and maths and is strong and knowledge-rich. It also provides the opportunity for innovation, expertise and, as she said, the agency of teachers to provide the absolutely best, broadest and richest experience for our children. That is a clear objective of the curriculum and assessment review.
Children and Young People: Literacy
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Smith of Malvern(1 month, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My Lords, one of the important roles of the English hubs programme, which the Government are supporting with a further £23 million this year, has been to ensure that both access to high-quality reading and elements of reading for pleasure are provided for teachers across primary schools, and that includes the opportunity for continuous professional development, specifically in reading for pleasure, for teachers.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Baroness is right that there is a lot of important information in the National Literacy Trust’s annual literacy survey. She is also right about writing, which is why the terms of reference for the curriculum and assessment review are clear that it should seek to deliver an excellent foundation in the core subjects of reading, writing and maths, as well as the broader curriculum that readies young people for life and work. I believe that the interim report will be available in the early spring and I know that many people will be looking forward to it.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, I am sure that my noble friend the Minister would like to take this opportunity to thank Frank Cottrell-Boyce for the sterling work that he is doing to promote the fact, precisely as my noble friend said, that reading begins not at the door of the school but when parents and carers share books with children in a safe, warm and comfortable environment. It is that that inculcates the love of reading and the love of books.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right, and I praise the intervention of Frank Cottrell-Boyce and of course of other writers of excellent children’s literature who promote the joy of reading. She is also right, as I have previously said, that that needs to start almost as soon as children are born. We will do what we can through the development of family hubs and our plan for change to ensure that children are prepared when they get to school, to make sure that that includes a love of reading and the ability to experience it in all families.
Curriculum and Assessment Review
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Smith of Malvern(3 months, 1 week ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I do not think it is strictly true that large numbers of young people do not have a working knowledge of important areas of digital skills and computing. Of course, increasing numbers of them take GCSEs and A-levels in computing, but the noble Lord makes an important point about it being important to have the necessary skills for life. The curriculum and assessment review will consider that, and this Government will take decisions on it when we receive that review.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, does my noble friend the Minister agree that, whatever the outcome of the curriculum review, a pedagogical focus on oracy would assist in the teaching of all the important skills that young people clearly need as they enter the world of work, and in being able to discuss issues such as anti-racism?
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
My noble friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure that young people are able to express themselves and to engage in discussion and debate. That is why we welcome, for example, the work that Geoff Barton and his Oracy Commission have carried out in this important area. It is also why developing language skills is vital in early years to enable children to thrive. We are funding evidence-based early language interventions, targeting children who need extra support with their speech and language development.
Ofsted
Debate between Baroness Blower and Baroness Smith of Malvern(5 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The noble Lord is right to outline the comments made by the coroner in the case of the tragic death of Ruth Perry and by the Education Select Committee in another place about the impact of the single headline grade in those circumstances. That is part of the reason for the Government’s decision to remove that single headline grade, while maintaining a wealth of information from the Ofsted inspection in the report card that is being developed.
I will be frank with the noble Lord. Having been on the receiving end of an Ofsted inspection both in schools and children’s social care, I think the inspections will always bring pressure on to schools and other settings, and so they should. The point is whether they are bringing pressure to good effect. During its Big Listen process, Ofsted has also had the opportunity to consider how to maintain that rigorous inspection and accountability process but to do that in a way, as the noble Lord says, that focuses on accountability and improvement but does not put undue stress on to schools and head teachers.
Baroness Blower (Lab)
My Lords, does the Minister agree that considerable good practice is available internationally on how best to inspect and evaluate schools and that there is enormous understanding within the profession about how best to improve our schools? On that basis, I congratulate my Government on making this early decision. In response to the noble Baroness opposite about what question the Government are trying to answer with this, I think they are trying to answer that question of unrealistic, unreasonable pressure on individuals in schools from that headline judgment. If it did nothing else other than prevent any other head teacher taking their own life, it would be absolutely worth doing.
Having been a teacher myself, I know that all teachers welcome engagement with those authorities which seek to assist them to improve in their practice. I am confident—and I hope the noble Baroness agrees—that a move towards a balanced scorecard, engaging the profession and looking at best practice internationally is absolutely the way to ensure that we have an increasing number of self-improving schools for all our young people.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I strongly agree with my noble friend, particularly on the points about how very good existing school leaders can support school improvement more widely and about learning from international experience. I know that Ofsted, in its consideration of improvement of the education inspection framework, will reflect on that, as will the Government. One reason for saying that it is a good idea to introduce the regional improvement teams in the way in which the Government are suggesting is because that enables us to build on the expertise of leaders in academies and other schools to support those schools which need to improve to be able to do so. In some cases, it will be necessary to change the management arrangements of schools but, short of that, much can be done to bring good practice to bear on those schools that need improvement, and we should make use of that capacity across the system.