Schools: Academies

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I can give that assurance. They are there for the benefit of the institution, which in this case is the school in question.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

In the light of the reply he gave to my noble friend, would the Minister be prepared to state that the Government’s policy should be and is that any pupil or student—of any age, whether sixth-former or primary school pupil—is entitled to have an equivalent amount of money spent on their education, unless there is a special allocation because of special needs? Government Ministers lambast local authority maintained schools, including some church schools, for not spending money and yet claim that academies have this right.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness will know that we have had a bit of a postcode lottery in school funding for many decades. This Government have gone quite some way to try and reduce the differentials but we should seek to do more in the future.

Ofsted: Academy Chains

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with my noble friend: free schools are our most successful group of non-selective state schools, with 24% rated outstanding. We are told by Ofsted that we have the highest-performing school system that we have ever had. The performance of the first batch of primary academies is much higher than that of local authority maintained schools, and secondary academies open for any length of time are clearly also doing better.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to comment on a fear that local authority schools have a much higher percentage of children with special needs, particularly those with special needs that affect their behaviour? The Minister very kindly wrote to me, giving me the percentage improvement in free schools and academies, but many schools contact me to say that their local academies and free schools do not take as many children with difficulties and problems, and that, in addition, those schools get better funding.

[Lord Nash]

I am very happy to write to the noble Baroness again with more details on this. However, as far as I am aware, most academies, particularly the 1,000 schools that we have taken out of local authority maintenance over the past four years, many of which were languishing in failure for years, have very high rates of pupils with SEN, EAL and free school meals. However, I am happy to write to her with more details.

Academies: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 16th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the points the noble Baroness makes, particularly in relation to pupils with autism.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister gave the figures for percentage improvements. I did not hear any comparative figures between different bands of schools. I wonder whether he could make those figures available. A 13% improvement may lead to an equality of opportunity or may merely improve things. While he is writing about that, perhaps he will let me and the House know how many of those special needs improvement figures relate to the growing number of special needs pupils with behavioural problems who, in my experience, parents fear are being excluded on the grounds of the efficiency of the school, which has been referred to.

[Lord Nash]

I will write to the noble Baroness in the terms she requires. I can certainly tell her that she will find the headline figure she is looking for very reassuring.

Schools: Admissions

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have. The current rate is that 87% of parents get their children into the school of their first choice and 96% get them into their top three. As I said, we are intent on making sure that every school is as good as it can be.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister care to comment on his repeated use of the term “better schools” and his comparing of schools—for example, his remark this afternoon about church schools by and large being better? My experience of church schools is that they want to be as good; they do not see education as a competition. But surely if schools are assessed by parents on the basis of Ofsted reports, among other things, those reports ought to be conducted on equal terms for all schools, with no warnings being given favourably to some.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness and I probably disagree in principle on the concept of competition, but we are aiming for all schools to be as good as possible. Ofsted now gives minimum notice to all schools. It is quite clear that Ofsted conducted a thorough investigation relating to recently reported events. Its findings were very clear and it made a statement on that last night.

Education: Citizenship Studies

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness. Parenting skills in this country are, in many cases, sadly lacking but it is not easy to dictate to parents, even young parents, how to do that. However, all good schools certainly seek to engage with their parents not just about their children’s education but, bluntly, to improve the education of the parents themselves.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, in making rather sweeping asides about the Labour Party’s policy, will the Minister please accept that there is a world of difference between laying down what children ought to learn as part of the curriculum and getting into the dangerous area of politicians deciding which books to teach the curriculum from?

[Lord Nash]

I would agree entirely with the noble Baroness except that I think it is a sad reflection on a country with as rich a literary history as we have that more than 90% of essays written for GSCE English literature are on three books.

Education: British Values

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The whole principle of consultation is that it is deliberative and that people will respond. I hope they do. As I said, it is not being rushed out, as the noble Lord implied. British values have been part of the policy framework since 2011, when they were introduced as part of the Prevent strategy. Since 2013 standards have required schools to encourage pupils to respect the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. The words are “mutual respect and tolerance”, not just “tolerance”. The noble Baroness, Lady Afshar, made this point and I will certainly take it back. It is important that our advice to schools is clear. To promote ideas or systems of thought at odds with these values would be failing to meet the standard.

These requirements provide a sufficient lever for action in cases where an attempt is made to undermine British values. The new title wording suggested in the consultation will do more to challenge rigorously those schools paying lip service to these duties. We will expect these changes to come into effect from September this year. They will apply to all independent schools, academies and free schools. We must secure the same standards in maintained schools. As with the independent sector, we are building on responsibilities schools already have to fulfil. Maintained schools must promote the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of their pupils so that they are able to participate positively in society. They cannot promote partisan political activities and must present balanced views to pupils. Importantly, they must promote community cohesion.

Under the citizenship curriculum, maintained schools are also required to teach pupils about a range of subjects, including democracy, human rights, diversity, and the need for mutual respect and understanding. I heard what my noble friend Lord Storey said about the vital importance of citizenship. As important, if not more important, for getting a real grasp of British values is to study history, in order to understand what Daniel Defoe was on about in the quote that was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Taverne, and to understand, for instance, that we are an island made up of a number of countries with a long history stretching back over several millennia of immigration.

While academies and free schools are not, as my noble friend Lord Storey said, subject to the same curriculum requirements as maintained schools, the trust running the school must deliver a broad and balanced curriculum and will be bound by the legal requirement to actively promote fundamental British values. As I trust noble Lords will acknowledge from the published coverage of the Birmingham academies placed into special measures, the Secretary of State will not hesitate to use his powers to consider terminating a funding agreement with an academy trust that cannot secure the required improvements.

Inspection is the primary means by which individual schools are held to account. Noble Lords will note that academies and free schools are inspected under the same section 5 framework as maintained schools. I know that noble Lords will be pleased to hear that 24% of free schools inspected have been adjudged to be outstanding—which, contrary to what reports suggested, represents a remarkable success, particularly as those schools were inspected after only four or five terms.

Spiritual, moral, social and cultural development is already part of section 5, but it allows inspectors to challenge only the most serious failures. Inspectors are already advised to look for evidence of pupils having the skills to participate in modern Britain, to understand and appreciate a range of different cultures, and to respect diversity. We will look to improve the consistency with which this is applied.

Now is the time to raise the bar so that all maintained schools, academies and free schools share the same goal of promoting British values. That is why, as the Secretary of State confirmed on 9 June, the department will review its own guidance to schools so that they are clear about our expectations. We are already talking to Ofsted to ensure that those same expectations are reflected in section 5 arrangements.

On what my noble friend Lord Storey said about grade 1 schools being exempt from inspection, they are not exempt and will be inspected if there are areas of concern; for example, if their results suffer or if there are particular complaints.

My noble friend Lord Cormack talked about a citizenship ceremony. I am sure that the events of Birmingham will enable us all to reflect on what more we can do to produce a more coherent and integrated society. On flying flags on schools, I am always pleased to see the flag so prominent when I visit America. It is sad that, if I were to put a union jack outside my own house, people would think that I was a member of the British National Party, and that the only time one sees flags is when a football match is on. It is also sad that very few students in our primary schools could describe the make-up of the union jack beyond the cross of St George.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Sheikh that education should be a tool of integration. We will not be able to call ourselves a truly successful society until we have a much more integrated society—and, sadly, we are some way short of that.

The noble Lord, Lord Stone, talked about mindfulness. I thank him for his insightful and interesting comments, and for his commercial for the mindfulness classes. The values that we are asking all schools to actively promote are not exclusive. As I understand it, mindfulness chimes a very loud chord with me. I believe that children and young people should be taught about concepts such as mindfulness. Such concepts can be very powerful, particularly for children from scattered home lives. We use a similar approach with a number of our more challenged pupils at my own secondary academy.

The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, made some powerful points. Of course, it is for all schools to ensure that the sort of beliefs to which she referred have no place in our society.

My noble friend Lord Lexden made some supportive comments, for which I am grateful. He knows how highly I value co-operation between the independent and state sectors.

I welcome the noble Baroness, Lady King, to the Dispatch Box for the first time. I agree with her on the importance of sharing by example, but she should not underestimate the seriousness of the events in Birmingham, about which I obviously know a great deal more than other noble Lords, and their wider implications. She should also be aware that both the free schools programme and the academies programme are proving great successes. Academies are performing much more strongly than other maintained schools.

The noble Baroness referred to Labour’s proposals for 50 regional bureaucracies. We believe that breaking the country into eight regional schools commissioner areas is appropriate. I note that there seems now to be a consensus that we should not go back to local authority control—even Ed Miliband said that in the other place only a few days ago—but creating 50 bureaucracies, each with its own staff, would effectively take us back to a local authority-controlled system.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

Will the Minister care to confirm that there has no been local education authority control of schools since the 1980s? They have had responsibilities and all sorts of things to do, but the use of the term “local authority control” negates the work done by predecessors of the Minister such as the noble Lord, Lord Baker, and Lord Joseph. Local authority control is non-existent and has been for decades.

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is quite right. I shall seek to ameliorate my language in future on that point.

The noble Baroness, Lady King, also made a point about the rule of law. The rule of law is already among the British values that all schools have to enforce, and all schools must teach a broad and balanced curriculum. None of the 21 schools inspected in Birmingham was a faith school.

I hope that all noble Lords will see the sense of what we are proposing. The changes that I have described will for the first time create a consistent expectation that all schools will promote British values. It will no longer be possible to avoid challenge if a school is only paying lip service to the requirements. The planned inspection arrangements will ensure that those who fail to meet their responsibilities will be held to account and, as we have shown in Birmingham, we will take swift and decisive action where necessary.

I hope that noble Lords will agree that our proposed measures are vital. As my noble friend Lady Berridge said—I am grateful for her support—just because we may not agree on everything does not mean that we cannot agree about a basic set of British values for which all schools should be held to account. Without an understanding and respect for our shared values, we cannot expect any young person to play a full part in British society.

Education Institutions: Autonomy and Accountability

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, I begin by saying how much I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Shephard, in her analysis that local authority control no longer exists. I get so angry when people refer to schools needing local authority control. Control disappeared years ago. Local accountability, as the noble Baroness said, is important.

I refer to personal experience in education in Lancashire over a 20-year period as a councillor. It is often forgotten that all the great innovations subsequently claimed by all political parties—such as nursery education, a full year in reception class and education maintenance allowances—began as local authority initiatives, working accountably with the local community. I cite one example in Preston, which occurred because the tax arrangements meant that Skelmersdale suddenly lost Courtaulds to Spain. That was one of the initiatives that led to encouraging young people to stay on in full-time education and training as an alternative to going on to what many now agree were youth training schemes with no future. That is important.

I praise the many leaders of our Catholic and Anglican schools and Jewish leaders in Lancashire, and my noble friend Lord Patel of Blackburn, for developing in the early 1980s an education document about education for a multifaith, multicultural society that was totally agreed across the community. In the early days in Blackburn, we saw the BNP rising. The response was to bring people together rather than to let people divide us.

The noble Baroness referred to teacher innovation. I pay tribute to the late Lord Joseph, who said of the curriculum that there was no place for a politician to make a comment about which books teachers should use; I shall say no more on that.

He was also superb on political education. In a statement circulated to all Lancashire schools, he said that, when questioned by secondary school pupils, a teacher could say that they were a member of CND but should also say that other teachers or their parents or councillors might hold totally different views. Sir Keith took the view that education was an important process, and our best teachers recognised that.

In looking at accountability and the role of local authorities in the future, it is important that we recognise the importance of responding to the needs of the whole community and of the school. In particular, children facing problems should be able to draw on the range of local authority services, with a co-ordinated approach taken towards social and housing problems, which afflict the lives of our children.

My conversations with the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, go back over decades. I am sure that she will remember the local authority higher education funding body and the former Preston Polytechnic, now the University of Central Lancashire—I blow the trumpet for it at this stage—which developed the most diverse student intake of its time. It accepted people from all sections of society. It co-operated successfully with Lancaster University and the Open University, with students being able to switch between them for different modules or different years of their course. Perhaps an answer to the funding crisis now being faced by people going into higher education would be to look back at that sort of experience.

I have worries about accountability and judging schools. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, I believe that HMI has a deep fund of experience which is invaluable in looking at how to help schools. London First gave us a very good example of heads from one school going into another school, of linking and pairing. In the early 1980s, which were not easy financially, we in Lancashire developed curriculum co-ordinators. A good individual teacher in a specific subject or year would be given supply cover to go and work with another teacher. That is the variation on the scheme that London First operates, but it costs money, because one has to have people able to leave their own class and go into another.

I worry about the local community becoming more fragmented. I worry that we may not have the balance of experience. I remember a Conservative county councillor—she was the aunt of the noble Lord, Lord Horam—being appalled when we were interviewing for a head teacher in a school in a very deprived area. Quite obviously, county councillor Mrs Horam was uneasy about the candidate who had been the most forthcoming. She had answered all the questions beautifully and, in despair, Marjorie turned to me and said, “Is there any other question you could ask?”. I grasped at the fact that that candidate had been on a course to identify gifted children. I asked, “Was it a good course? Was it useful—was it great?”. She answered, “It was a superb course and I learnt a lot from it, but it wouldn’t be useful in a school serving an area like this”. At that point Marjorie Horam put her pen down and we nailed her.

It is important that there is a thread of responsibility in making appointments and judgments about teachers, which must involve those with experience—like Marjorie, who knew that something was wrong—and be able to draw on that. Those children come from communities which have both very diverse problems and some very similar problems. In the middle of dealing with the problem of surplus places, which was a fraught experience, I had to talk to people about meeting the needs of all the children. I worry that we are in danger of continuing to provide schools where they are not needed, and not providing them where they are.

Schools: Teachers

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. Studies show that holding QTS is by no means the arbiter of a successful teacher, and we must remember of course that QTS training is extremely brief. A McKinsey study highlighted the importance of personal characteristics such as commitment, resilience, perseverance and motivation—and, of course, subject knowledge is very important. Reflecting my noble friend’s comments, Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, one of the most improved schools in the country, said:

“I strongly believe that teachers are born not made and I will actively seek out teachers from all walks of life who have the potential to inspire children”.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, way back in the 1960s, I may have been the only person in your Lordships’ House who was an unqualified teacher. During that period, the classes I was given by the head teachers of the day tended to be those with children with behavioural and learning difficulties. Can the Minister assure the House and all those parents and grandparents of children with special educational needs that their teachers will be qualified in the expertise of teaching special needs children, not thrown to the wolves as the children thrown to me were?

[Lord Nash]

I respect the noble Baroness’s experience. I think we have moved a long way on SEN teaching since the 1960s—I certainly hope and believe we have. Our policy is that all schools must have a qualified SENCO overseeing all teaching of SEN pupils. Successive Governments have invested substantial sums in developing the skills of teachers focusing on SEN, and teachers generally, on identifying and teaching SEN pupils.

Education: Free School Funding

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 12th May 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

Local admissions arrangements are for the local authority in the area, although it is true that virtually all academies and free schools use the local authority admissions process. I have already answered the second point about money being directed from basic needs to free schools. We have a very strict policy: no free school or academy can be run as a business. Indeed, no one with any close relationship with a free school or academy can provide any services to that school except at cost. The Government are fully committed across party to the universal free school meals programme.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister said that no money has been diverted into the free schools programme. Will the Minister confirm that the Treasury set a limit? If, for example, the per capita payment per pupil—not the building cost, but the per capita cost per pupil—is higher for free schools, then both the local authority maintained schools and the voluntary sector schools are deprived of resources. I, for one, take offence when it is said that free schools have more highly qualified teachers when actually they are allowed to employ unqualified teachers. I consider that to be a slur. I admit that I am biased, but does the Minister accept that in Lancashire parents join in their local schools, be they church schools—of which Lancashire has the largest number—or other schools? When the Minister says that seven out of every nine free schools are justified, two out of every nine are not justified. County schools, local authority schools and the voluntary aided sector cannot use that money if it is being spent to support a whim of the Secretary of State.

[Lord Nash]

All academies and free schools are funded on an equal basis to maintained schools. They may get some start-up grants, but their annual revenue going forward is equal. As regards the slur to which the noble Baroness referred, the Statement says quite clearly that Ofsted has reported that all schools, not just free schools, have more highly qualified teachers than ever before.

School Pupils: English Speakers

Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Earl is quite right; teaching is the most noble profession and we should at all times recognise that and constantly try to raise the status of teaching in all our lives. Teachers do a wonderful job. Our new Best 8 progress measures will track the progress of all pupils of whatever ability throughout their school careers. We think that that is very important.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton (Lab)]

Can I share with the Minister an experience that I had? A London taxi driver was talking to me about his daughter’s education? His daughter had a first class degree and had gained a job in India in IT. He said, “You see, my daughter was very fortunate. She went to a school where she was able to learn Urdu and Gujarati”. The availability of such languages in our schools should always be seen as an asset and an opportunity for English first-language pupils.