Schools White Paper

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Tuesday 29th March 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for his questions. I also extend my thanks to Church schools but also to all schools that have been working in the most difficult circumstances, particularly in the second half of this term, with the pressures that Covid has placed, once again, on their staff. I can, I hope, reassure the right reverend Prelate that we will be protecting the faith designation of diocesan schools on a statutory basis as we move forward with our plans. We are providing funding to support academisation and to make sure that schools, particularly schools in the most entrenched areas of educational underperformance, are funded to join strong trusts.

On small rural schools—to go back to the point of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, about feeling local—perhaps there are no schools more local than small rural primaries, which often play a really important part in their community. We will be putting a great deal of thought into this and look forward to working with the right reverend Prelate’s colleagues at the diocesan education board in thinking through how we can deliver this in a way that supports small rural primaries.

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, the Secretary of State deserves the warmest congratulations, with the ministerial team and all those officials and others who have been involved in Opportunity for All: Strong Schools with Great Teachers for your Child. I suggest that anyone who thinks there is excessive focus on English and maths should consult parents. Parents want their children to read and write; parents know the world is difficult; they know that numeracy and now digital skills are critical. They know that a good education is the passport for the future, and the most disadvantaged parents know that quite as much as the most affluent. I really like this White Paper for its coherence, its ambition, its relative simplicity and its evidence base. How many times have we all heard head teachers saying, “I’ve had so many documents come through that I have to read—I’ve got to teach my school and do everything else”? Somebody once said to me, “I’ve given the documents to my husband to read because I just don’t have time to read it all.” This is accessible and approachable.

Children spend around 15,000 hours at school; the same amount of time as they spend at home. Professor Sir Michael Rutter, the architect of child psychiatry, wrote a book, Fifteen Thousand Hours, with the team at the Maudsley, comparing the output of 12 secondary schools in Southwark. They found that the brightest children at some schools were doing worse than the least able children at another school. This is about teachers, about expectations and about rigour. For those of us who want to see what can be achieved, we can only celebrate again the extraordinary results at the Brampton Manor Academy. This year, 89 young people got Oxbridge offers—ethnic minorities, school meals, first generation university.

I have so much to say, I had better be quick. I have two questions I want to ask. Will the Minister say a little more about the Education Endowment Foundation; and will she say just a bit more about excluded pupils? They are a really vexed problem. They can be disruptive in a class aiming for high standards, but we do not want them to fall out of the system, so I very much hope she will address that.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, I will pass on my noble friend’s very warm words to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. I am glad that she appreciates the White Paper. I agree with her wholeheartedly about what parents want. I was lucky enough to spend some time with a group of parents yesterday while visiting a school in Newham, where 94% of the children have English as an additional language. The mothers and fathers to whom I spoke were all crystal clear about how important it was for their children to achieve.

In relation to my noble friend’s specific questions, the Education Endowment Foundation, which we fully endowed through, and announced in, the White Paper, provides us with the academic rigour in terms of evaluating different interventions across the education system, so that teachers, school leaders and MAT leaders can feel confident in the interventions that they use. All that we have suggested in the White Paper has been supported and recommended by the EEF. In relation to excluded children, if my noble friend will bear with me for another day, we are taking the Statement about the special educational needs and alternative provision Green Paper in this House tomorrow, when I will be delighted to talk about that in more detail.