Breakfast Clubs: Early Adopters

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, there are many different schemes in addition to the one the Government have just announced, which aim to provide breakfast for children in schools. How and through which government departments will these be co-ordinated? I ask this because I fear that there is a siloed approach to many of these schemes, which means that there will be gaps in the service provided If there were proper co-ordination through a department that is overtly in charge of these schemes, those gaps would not occur.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Baroness is right that some good schemes are already in place but, to reiterate, none is universal or free. The breakfast club commitment that will be brought into law through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill, which will come to this House soon, will ensure that there are no gaps because there will be universal provision across all state-funded schools with primary-age pupils. It will be co-ordinated by the DfE, supported in some of the ways I have outlined. That is how we will get coherence and opportunity for everybody. To be fair, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, also pointed out the benefit of a universal scheme: it removes the stigma associated with schemes targeted specifically at some children.

Schools: Citizenship Education

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

Wednesday 5th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend makes a good point. That is part of what we have asked the curriculum and assessment review, which is currently in place, to consider. Critical thinking and the ability to identify the use of misinformation in media, and to distinguish it from proper sources of information, are critical elements of what young people deserve as part of their education.

[Baroness D'Souza (CB)]

My Lords, in view of the demise of many youth clubs across the country, does the Minister agree that citizenship education must be professionally taught at both primary and secondary school level by trained teachers?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The ability to take part in citizenship education in both primary and secondary schools, as the noble Baroness says—of course, in secondary school it is a compulsory part of the national curriculum—is an important part of ensuring that young people are engaged. On her first point, the need for broader support of and engagement with young people is the reason why the Government launched plans in November 2024 to create a new national youth strategy for and by young people, as part of our mission to improve opportunity.

Education (Values of British Citizenship) Bill [HL]

Baroness D'Souza Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness D’Souza (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as president of Young Citizens, formerly the Citizenship Foundation. Teaching citizenship has a relatively short history in the UK, certainly when compared with other European countries. Its formal inclusion in the national curriculum began only in 2002. At this time, citizenship education had become compulsory and a GCSE in citizenship studies was introduced. However, this early promise was not maintained and in 2014, a government review resulted in a weaker programme that stressed constitutional history and volunteerism rather than active citizenship. Furthermore, the requirement for most schools to teach the national curriculum was removed, resulting in a significant decrease in citizenship teaching and, indeed, teachers.

Yet young people today face an extremely complex world, from riots and food poverty in the UK to wars and environmental degradation, but they also feel distanced from a democratic system that might address their concerns. The distrust of politicians, institutions and the democratic process has never been greater: 44% of young people surveyed had little or no confidence in their ability to participate and 63% did not believe that their voice was ever heard or had any impact.

The Bill goes some way to redress the balance. It restates and changes the current set of values, emphasising freedom of thought, speech, religion and assembly, individual worth and respect for the environment. In reframing the fundamental British values, it gives schools the opportunity to focus on cultivating the new values and introduces new connections with human rights, government and policy. In this sense, citizenship education is both a subject in itself and provides a framework for perceiving and relating to society more generally.

Values and attitudes need to be actively taught; in other words, we need to bring citizenship to life. This can be achieved by means of interactive and practical learning. As always, the real test will lie in the implementation. There are many steps that need to be taken, starting with providing teachers with training and resources. The next step is a firm commitment on the part of all schools to incorporate the values of British citizenship within the curriculum. Thereafter, the task will be to evaluate the impact of such courses, hopefully armed with positive results, and to continue to encourage policymakers to recognise the importance of values and support their long-term inclusion in national curricula.