Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, the current reporting areas for school inspections of maintained schools and academies have evolved over the years in a piecemeal way with new requirements being bolted on for the best of reasons but without there being any overall consolidation. Over time the arrangements have become crowded, with inspectors having to make numerous judgments and schools feeling that they have to jump through multiple and sometimes overlapping hoops. Clause 40 consolidates and refocuses the arrangements around core issues related to education in its widest sense, covering pupils’ academic and personal development. It specifies four high-level areas that must be reported on; namely, pupils’ achievement, the quality of teaching, leadership and management, and pupils’ behaviour and safety. It requires inspectors, in reporting on these, to consider pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development and how the school is meeting the needs of the range of pupils. The new approach will mean inspectors spending more time in classrooms, observing teaching, listening to pupils read, and talking to pupils and staff. The space provided in the new framework will mean that inspectors can drill down more effectively into difficult areas. Ofsted has developed, piloted and now published a new draft framework built around these provisions and the proposals have been welcomed by both schools and inspectors. Ofsted is currently training inspectors in the new approach which, subject to the passage of this Bill, will be introduced in January.
The specific terms “well-being” and “community cohesion” in Amendments 77 and 78 are not included in the consolidated provisions set out in Clause 40. But as my noble friend Lady Walmsley pointed out, that does not mean that they are to be absent from the new arrangements. There will be good coverage of these matters but they will be approached in an integrated way, linked to the core areas and underpinning considerations. This comes across clearly in the draft framework documents that Ofsted published at the end of September which were circulated to Peers in the open letter to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, on 14 October. For example, the new arrangements will give prominence to aspects such as behaviour, attendance and pupil safety—all of which are fundamental to well-being. Inspectors will spend more time looking at absence and reasons for this and at how the needs of any pupils who are educated partly off site are addressed. The wider safeguarding of pupils remains a key part of the assessment of leadership and management and noble Lords have rightly emphasised the importance of safeguarding. That also looks at how the school is working in partnership with other schools, external agencies and the community to increase the range and quality of learning opportunities for pupils. Inspectors will be considering pupils’ participation in activities to develop their social skills. Inspectors will look at how schools manage safeguarding arrangements, including effective identification of children at risk of harm. They will also conduct case studies looking at the experience of vulnerable pupils, including those with special educational needs, looked-after children or those with mental health needs.
There will also be good coverage of issues related to community cohesion. I can reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and others who spoke in support of this that inspectors will focus on how well performance gaps are narrowing between different groups of pupils when assessing achievement. They will also look at how teachers ensure that all pupils have equal access and a fair chance to learn in an atmosphere of respect and dignity when assessing behaviour, at how the school helps pupils prepare for life in modern democratic Britain and a global society when addressing leadership, and at the extent to which pupils understand and appreciate the range of different cultures within the school and further afield, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, as an essential element of preparation for life when considering pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development. This is in the draft evaluation schedule published by Ofsted which is available to all schools and the public, so I can also reassure my noble friend Lord Lucas that all schools will indeed know about it.
My noble friend Lady Benjamin asked how we would ensure that equalities issues were addressed. I reassure her that equalities are at the heart of the inspection system. Under the teaching limb, inspectors will assess the extent to which the needs of all pupils are being met. Under behaviour and safety, inspectors will look at whether all pupils have an equal and fair chance to thrive and learn. On leadership, they will assess whether there is a broad and balanced curriculum that meets the needs of all pupils. Where schools are not meeting the needs of all groups of pupils, this will be reflected in inspectors’ judgments about the school. In addition, schools of course have duties under the Equality Act.
Amendment 79 would amend the underpinning requirement for inspectors to consider pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development to add linguistic development. I assure the noble Lord, Lord Quirk, that I agree that linguistic development is highly important. That is reflected both in Ofsted’s new approach and in the early years foundation stage. The starting point for assessment of communication, language and literacy development is the early years foundation stage profile assessment, which sets the standards for learning and development from birth to age five. My noble friend the Minister met the noble Lord recently and shared with him the full detail of the assessment that is made on communication and language. I say for the benefit of the House that the assessment includes checking the extent to which children speak clearly and audibly with confidence and control, and show awareness of the listener. It assesses how they use language to imagine and recreate roles and experiences, and how they use talk to organise, sequence and clarify thinking, ideas, feelings and events. It checks that children hear and say sounds and words in the order in which they occur; that they link sounds to letters, naming and sounding the letters of the alphabet; that they use their phonic knowledge to write simple regular words and make phonetically plausible attempts at more complex words; and that they explore and experiment with sounds, words and text, and retell narratives in the correct sequence, drawing on language patterns of stories.
We have recently consulted on revisions to the early years foundation stage. One proposal that we are looking to take forward is a new assessment for all children at age two. This would include personal, social, and communication and language development. The aim is to identify where children are doing well and where additional support may be necessary. The intention is to introduce this from September next year.
I turn to the new inspection system. In evaluating teaching and pupil achievement, inspectors will draw on the EYFS profile assessment in considering how well pupils develop skills in reading, writing and communication, and the extent to which pupils develop the skills to learn for themselves. Inspectors will listen to children reading, with a particular emphasis on weaker readers, and consider opportunities in the curriculum and through interactions with teachers and other adults for pupils to engage in a range of activities—for example, developing an appreciation of theatre and literature.
As the noble Lord has noted previously, social and cultural development presupposes linguistic development. We do not think that it is necessary to identify linguistic development separately from social and cultural development and, more generally, we do not believe that there is a pressing case to add to the legislation in this respect. The phrase “spiritual, moral, social and cultural development” has been with us since the start of Ofsted inspections in the early 1990s and continues to be just as useful and relevant today. To provide some additional assurance, we have agreed with Ofsted that linguistic development will feature explicitly in the training being provided for all inspectors in the coming weeks. We have asked that this important area be considered within the new framework for initial teaching training, on which Ofsted will shortly consult.
Amendment 76A from the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, would introduce a fifth core area on which Ofsted would be required to report, covering the extent to which pupils of compulsory school age are “school ready” when they join the school. We have already had a useful debate during the first session about the importance of good parenting and support through the first five years of a child’s development, so I will not repeat the points that were made on this. However, I fully acknowledge that parents and early years providers have an important role to play in preparing children for school.
School inspection is concerned with holding schools to account for performance in educating their pupils. Inspection reports are therefore focused on the extent to which pupils progress and develop and not on reporting information about aspects of pupil intake, but I assure the noble Lord that inspectors will be interested in pupils’ starting points. The evaluation schedule that inspectors will use makes reference to the important assessment that is required to be made by schools under the early years foundation stage profile, the scores that inspectors will check as part of assessing what progress pupils have made at the end of each key stage relative to their starting points. Put simply, inspectors will look at the value that schools add while not lowering their expectations.
I know that the noble Lord is concerned also with what happens in other early years settings, the extent to which they are required to follow the early years foundation stage and how they are held to account. EYFS is mandatory for all early years settings, including reception classes in schools. The EYFS profile is an observational assessment of all children in the summer term of their reception year at school, the academic year in which they turn five. The reception class, of course, is attended by nearly all children. In addition, all children at ages three and four are entitled to 15 hours’ free early years education for 38 weeks a year, as are the most disadvantaged children at age two. For the most vulnerable children in need, we have debated previously the duty on local authorities to consider providing services which meet their needs.
The assessments are undertaken by teachers, supported by evidence gathered during the child’s time in reception year. It is based on practitioners’ ongoing observation and assessments of children’s progress in all six areas of learning and development. Parents are given a written report on their children which reflects the judgments of their child’s teacher based on the evidence that they and others have gathered. The information is used by the parent and the school to understand the child's development needs and to help plan for their future learning.
Data from EYFSP assessments are collected by local authorities, and they provide aggregate data to the department. The department publishes data annually at local authority and national level—these have been sent to the noble Lord. Last week we wrote to the noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, detailing the various ways in which we collect information on the early years. We would of course agree with what she said in today’s debate about the importance of school governors in the whole pattern of these developments.
On holding local authorities to account, we are making data available about how children are developing at the end of the early years in each local authority area. We would expect schools and parents to use this to challenge the authority on its performance.
Ofsted inspects all early years providers against the EYFS. Where settings fail to meet the EYFS requirements, inspectors take action, instructing improvements as needed. Where improvements are needed, settings are inspected again, more quickly than they would otherwise be.
Finally, local authorities have a duty to provide information, advice and training to childcare providers in order to raise quality. To support this, the Government provide a substantial funding stream through the early intervention grant to enable local authorities to act more strategically and target investment where it will have the greatest impact, with greater flexibility to respond to local needs and to drive reform.
I hope that the noble Lord will agree that the EYFS profile is the right mechanism to provide the information about school readiness that he is seeking, and that the focus in school inspection should continue to be on the progress that pupils are making and the value added by the school.
The provisions in Clause 40 offer a coherent set of high-level reporting areas that have enabled Ofsted to put together a new approach to inspection that will be clearer for schools and inspectors and drive improvement.
I apologise if I have spoken at some length, but many important points have been raised in this debate. I hope that I have offered reassurance about coverage of well-being, community cohesion and linguistic development within the framework documents, and wider assurances about EYFS and how school readiness is monitored. I hope that, with those reassurances, the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
Before my noble friend sits down, will she agree to write to me saying exactly where community cohesion is dealt with in the draft framework document or the evaluation schedule? I must be reading the words wrong, missing them or misunderstanding how they work.
Lord Northbourne
My Lords, if you were setting up a business to manufacture and sell bicycles and you were going to subcontract the construction of the wheels and maybe the bell to another provider, would you not inspect the wheels and the bell when they came in? Would you rely entirely on the provider to give you the inspection that you need to ensure the quality of the pieces that you were bringing in and putting together and on which your life’s work would depend?
The Minister has kindly given us a great deal of detail about what the EYFS does and all the inspections that take place, and it is very exciting that that is happening, but I am looking at it from the point of view of the school in this particular case. I think that the school needs to have an independent assessment to ensure that the input into the school is up to standard; and if it is not, then extra funding perhaps needs to be provided to enable the school to give special support, rather than having to take money away from its educational work in order to have to pay for restorative work to bring children up to speed.
I will read the reply carefully, but I am sorry to say that I do not honestly think that the Minister has covered the point that I tried to address. That may be my fault for not addressing it sufficiently clearly. Under the circumstances, I certainly do not intend to take the matter any further and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I beg to move that further consideration on Report be now adjourned for the day. The usual channels have agreed that Report stage should continue on Tuesday 1 November and not later tonight.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hughes of Woodside
I do not know why my noble friend repeats the story that we are trying to stop people understanding the background, history and traditions of this country. Nothing is further from the truth. We are saying that of course one should be able to teach all faiths at any time; we have no problem with that. However, we should not insist on collective worship from which some people are excluded.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Perhaps I may remind noble Lords of the rules on Report. Members may speak only once to an amendment.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, I thought we were voting. I wish to speak to Amendment 61D standing in my name and the names of the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight.
It is rather odd that we have just had a debate about an issue that has divided opinion since the establishment of early state education with the Forster’s Act of 1870 and we still have an enormous amount of confusion as to whether the debate on this amendment is beginning.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
For the sake of clarification, the last vote was nullified because no one called “Content” at the three-minute point, and the Not Contents have it. We are now moving on to Amendment 61D, which my noble friend Lord Willis is moving.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, the history of moving amendments on technology is fraught with danger. It seems rather odd in your Lordships’ House that we can have an hour-long debate about whether we should have collective worship and yet in the most technologically advanced nation on earth we cannot decide whether we have had a vote. Nevertheless, we will move on.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise again to my noble friend, but there is so much noise in the Chamber that it is quite difficult to hear what he is saying. I invite noble Lords either to come in and listen to the debate or perhaps to leave quietly so that we can continue with Amendment 61D.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
I am very grateful to my noble friend. The fact that the House is so packed to hear this amendment on technology brightens my soul.
When the noble Lords, Lord Puttnam and Lord Knight, and I raised this amendment in Committee, we were hopeful that the Minister would reflect on the issues raised and the importance of technology in our schools, and bring back government amendments on Report that indicated that this Government listened to one of the most important technologies driving our education system, our society and our economy. However, there is not a word in this piece of legislation about how we empower our young people to enter a technological society where they can take full advantage of all that pertains.
In responding to the debate in Committee, my noble friend the Minister said:
“We are talking to a number of interested parties—school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts—about how the department should take forward its thinking about technology”.—[Official Report, 13/7/11; col. GC 306.]
Sadly we have not had a single word about where those discussions have led. We have not had a single idea from the Government as to whether technology has a place in a modern UK education system in the 21st century. It is enormously disappointing that we still have from the Government a view that technology, particularly information communications technology, is a distraction from the central aim of raising standards. It is absolutely essential to the raising of standards to have proper technology and technology policies in our schools.
We are not promoting the case for ICT as an alternative to conventional subject matter or pedagogy but as an integral part of delivering a world-class, 21st century curriculum. Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, recently reminded us that,
“Lewis Carroll didn't just write one of the classic fairytales of all time. He was also a mathematics tutor at Oxford. James Clerk Maxwell was described by Einstein as among the best physicists since Newton—but was also a published poet”.
Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, who sadly died very recently, said:
“The Macintosh turned out so well because the people working on it were musicians, artists, poets and historians who also happened to be excellent computer scientists”.
This amendment is about digital inclusion. It is about encouraging schools to meet their responsibilities to generations of young people who access ICT as both a tool and a discipline, and not to disadvantage themselves—or indeed the nation—as they move forward. However, it is so much more than just a pious and well-meaning amendment. All the evidence from studies from the Royal Society, the EPSRC, the Times Educational Supplement, the Government’s own department, major corporations, and charities such as futurelab and the e-Learning Foundation, of which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and I are privileged to be the respective chairs, emphasise the link between the use of ICT, educational motivation and achievement and future economic success and well-being. Not a single reputable study points to our young people or our society being disadvantaged as a result of access to high-quality ICT. You have to go to parts of the United States to get that view.
However, some 4 million people in Britain today are not online and are usually the most disadvantaged. Forty-nine per cent of those without access come from the lowest socioeconomic groups, and 70 per cent are in social housing. Thirty-eight per cent of those who are currently unemployed are not online, despite the fact that 70 per cent of all jobs are advertised online. That is a very cruel deception. Ministers must understand that the majority of those households will have children, who, without our support, will be part of tomorrow’s statistics.
One million children in our schools today cannot get online at home. Yet so much of the work they are being set in schools, and so many of the projects which they are being asked to complete, rely upon them being able to get online and do their work in that way. By encouraging schools to be proactive—particularly in recognising that an IT policy must extend into the home, where often the greatest disparity exists—the Government can make children and their schools part of a solution to support a wide range of government objectives.
This amendment is not a plea for special funding. I have not mentioned funding once, and nor have my noble friends. Encouraging schools to use their pupil premium would go a long way to meet both school and home access requirements. However, it requires the statutory authority of this amendment to say to schools, “Technology should be at the heart of what you do, and you need to report every year on that to the Secretary of State, as well as to your pupils’ parents and to your governors”.
Finally, this amendment would also address one of the real challenges facing our schools and colleges: that of addressing the shortfall in the number of students studying computing across the UK. According to the current Royal Society study, from 2006 to 2009 we saw a fall of 33 per cent in the number of students studying ICT at GCSE level. There has been a similar fall since 2003 of one-third of students studying ICT at A2-level. We have also seen a 57 per cent reduction in A2 level students studying computer science. Such dramatic falls in numbers of students going into our universities to study computer science are having a seriously detrimental effect on our ability to produce the sort of graduates we need for our modern economy. That alone is a reason for us to put ICT and technology at the heart of delivering the 21st century curriculum.
I hope that, as this will not cost the Minister anything but will win him friends throughout the nation, this is one amendment about which the Minister can simply say to the House, “I accept the wisdom of your words”. I beg to move.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Willis for raising this important issue. We agree entirely with him, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, and other noble Lords who have spoken in this debate that the effective use of technology is critical to education in the 21st century and indeed to employment.
In his speech to the Royal Society on 29 June, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State outlined the importance of technological innovation in supporting good teaching and how successful ideas need to spread rapidly through the system. The role of Government in this area is to encourage schools to take better advantage of opportunities presented by digital technologies to engage pupils, improve teaching and deliver education more effectively and efficiently—and, from the messages in this debate, more excitingly as well. The Secretary of State will say more on this later in the year and I cannot pre-empt what he plans to say in that speech.
We know that many schools and teachers are already making excellent use of technology to help deliver their educational aims, and we need to learn from them. As noble Lords have set out so eloquently today, though, there is room for more widespread and innovative use across the system. Some teachers also need more knowledge about how to use technology effectively to support their practice, and we heard from the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the noble Baroness, Lady Paisley, how the very young are often far more proficient in technology than their teachers, parents or, dare I say, grandparents.
However, we should not seek to dictate how schools use technology or seek to plan this centrally. We should allow schools to innovate, working in partnership with industry and other experts. Schools need to respond to these opportunities, making informed decisions about whether and how to adopt new approaches in the best interests of their pupils.
We have spoken to many interested parties including school leaders, professional bodies, educational charities, industry, academics and other experts about technology in schools. The department is also taking forward work to help ensure that schools can get best value when purchasing technology—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, mentioned procurement as one of the issues here—and we are working with industry to agree data standards for educational systems. It is at this level that we feel the department should be involved in supporting schools to make best use of technology.
There is no doubt that the effective use of technology can support good teaching and help to raise standards. We welcome the noble Lord’s commitment to the potential of technology to improve education and are grateful for all the ideas that have come forward in this debate and in previous ones.
Lord Puttnam
I am sorry to interrupt the Minister but I have a question before she sits down. Do the Government conceive it possible that a school might be considered successful that was unsuccessfully delivering ICT, coding and all the other things that this debate has thrown up as being fundamental? Again, my experience of education, having worked in the department, is that heads will react and respond to what they consider will win them brownie points, and the ultimate brownie point is to be deemed a successful school. Could she possibly give us a firm commitment that schools that fail in this area could not be deemed successful?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It would be almost impossible to deliver the curriculum successfully in a 21st-century school without the effective use of technology. I would have to come back to him on chapter and verse, but I cannot think that it would be possible for a school to deliver the curriculum successfully without a good use of technology.
The ideas in today’s debate and previous debates will be passed back to my right honourable friend the Secretary of State. As I said, later this year he is planning to say more about technology in schools and the role and work of government in this area. We have had a typically constructive and diverse debate today that has taken in acorns, tadpoles and apples. These issues are under active consideration and I hope, in the light of this, that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Willis of Knaresborough
My Lords, I am enormously grateful for the contributions of noble Lords on all sides of the House in what has been a fascinating 45-minute debate on a subject which your Lordships clearly feel incredibly strongly about. In his question to the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, put his finger on the pulse of this issue: can a school be successful if it does not have ICT and technology at the heart of delivering a 21st century curriculum? The Minister was generous enough to admit that she did not believe that it was possible. In spite of all the research that she might do, she will not be able to point to a single school in the whole of the United Kingdom that is successful without using technology to deliver its curriculum.
I was interested in the short speech of the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss. It was telling. She said that her grandson was making good progress with his computer and iPad. Sadly, a million children do not have access to either an iPad or a computer, and they are the ones who are the most disadvantaged. The great sadness about the Minister’s response to this debate is that these children will remain disadvantaged unless a benevolent head teacher in a benevolent school decides that ICT is going to be a priority for that school. Unless it is part of the league table culture it will not be part of it at all.
I am not worried about whether or not it is part of the English baccalaureate. I am much more interested in ICT being the electricity—the energy—that delivers, motivates and turns youngsters on to a high-performing education system.
I leave the House with three comments. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, quite rightly talked about employability and I mentioned that most jobs are advertised on line, yet those that need them most cannot access them online. The educational case was made strongly by, among others, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and by my noble friend Lord Lucas, whose passion for technology and ICT knows no bounds. I loved his description of the noble Lord, Lord Knight, sitting on a toadstool somewhere, with frogs all around him spawning. It was a wonderful analogy.
However, my noble friend was fundamentally wrong when he talked about there being only two ideologies: Stalinist or laissez-faire. There is another way and this amendment was neither Stalinist nor laissez-faire. It says to the Secretary of State, “Please take your duties seriously about creating the sorts of framework that allow schools to operate and on which we will judge you”.
This has been an interesting debate. I believe that we will not get much further on this occasion. We have been told that the Secretary of State will make an announcement from on high later. Perhaps he will become the Steve Jobs of government. Or perhaps he will become part of the Amish sect. We will see. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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The Earl of Listowel
Before the noble Baroness sits down, can she say whether she thinks it important that there is a good, continuous institutional base for parenting training and development? I may have misremembered—
Baroness Garden of Frognal
If the noble Earl will forgive me, on Report people may speak only once to each amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
I thought it was the case that one could ask a brief question before someone sits down. I do apologise if that is wrong.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I also support Amendment 33, which I have added my name to. I will not rehearse the arguments that have been made by noble Lords who have already spoken except to say, as I said in Committee, that these issues about safeguarding are absolutely paramount. There is one area that no one has picked up on but of which I have personal experience. Looked-after children, foster children or children with difficult family arrangements often have complex arrangements at the school gate. For this particular group, it is always vital that the parent with the residency order knows exactly what is happening.
My own experience was at primary school level, where the school was fully on board with all the issues. In a large secondary school with 1,200 pupils, I worry that a teacher or head of department handing out a detention might not be aware of such complex arrangements. For such reasons, which also come back to safeguarding, this is really important. Amendment 33 does not ask for much. The key thing from this Side is for the Minister to please look again at the wording. We want a really clear statement that nothing will be done that will compromise the safety of the child. That is the absolute nub of it. We can all give many more anecdotes but fundamentally, at its root, this is about the safeguarding of children.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, there is clear evidence that good standards of behaviour are vital if children are to receive a high-quality education. We know that a clear and consistently applied behaviour policy, including rewards and sanctions, helps schools to achieve these standards—indeed, noble Lords have acknowledged that in their comments.
There is strong public support for improving the standards of behaviour in schools. A recent survey for the Times Educational Supplement found that 91 per cent of parents and 62 per cent of children favour tougher discipline in secondary schools. The same poll found that 88 per cent of parents and 60 per cent of pupils supported teachers in giving after-school detentions. The head teachers who gave evidence in the other place made clear that detentions are a key part of maintaining good behaviour. As has already been mentioned, Sir Michael Wilshaw went so far as to say that detentions were,
“a crucial plank in our behavioural policy”.
There is a certain level of agreement among us that behaviour patterns and detentions are part of a way in which a school operates effectively.
This clause removes the requirement for schools to provide 24 hours’ written notice of detention outside school hours. In doing this, we seek to enable head teachers and teachers to use detention in the way most suited to the circumstances of their individual schools and in the way that is most appropriate to the pupil or incident with which they are dealing.
Various concerns have been raised today. It might be helpful to noble Lords if I set out what a school has to do, by law, to issue an after-school detention at the moment. First, under Section 89 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006, the head teacher must determine and make generally known in the school and to parents whether the school issues detentions outside school hours.
Secondly, Section 91 of the same Act requires that detentions must be reasonable and constitute a proportionate punishment in all the circumstances. There must also be strong assurances that, when issuing a detention, school staff must have regard to any known special circumstances of the pupil, including the pupil’s age, any special educational needs, disability or religious requirements. That would certainly affect any looked-after children or children with caring responsibilities.
Thirdly, a further safeguard in Section 92(5) of the Act provides that if arrangements have to be made for a pupil to travel home after a detention then, when deciding whether a detention is reasonable, the member of staff must take into account whether suitable travel arrangements can be reasonably made by the pupil’s parents. Many noble Lords have raised concerns about children being unable to get home after detentions in rural areas but we believe this safeguard is designed to address that concern. It is already there, as one of the safeguards that the school must have regard to. A detention that left a child unable to get home in a safe way would not be reasonable in the circumstances and would be in breach of the existing safeguards. I can well understand my noble friend’s point about children with caring responsibilities, and with these other difficulties that we have outlined, but the safeguards above prevent a young carer being given an out-of-hours detention if it is unreasonable, given their individual circumstances.
There is one additional requirement: that parents must be given 24 hours’ written notice of a detention outside school hours. So, in the long list of requirements that schools must follow before issuing an after-school detention we want to remove just one. Why do the Government want to remove the requirement for 24 hours’ written notice? We have had briefing from the Association of School and College Leaders, which made it clear that,
“generally such punishments are most effective if they take place as soon as reasonably practical”.
Indeed, the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones and Lady Howarth, both acknowledged the fact that immediacy of punishment for a crime is a much more effective way of disciplining young people.
The requirement as it stands also places many good schools that issue 15-minute detentions at the end of the school day in breach of the law. These schools do not and would never for a moment consider jeopardising a pupil’s safety or damaging relations with parents. Of course, even with the present requirement for written notice in place there is no guarantee that parents will be aware that a detention is happening. Schools may send the notice home with pupils, who may or may not pass it on to the parent. Equally, an e-mail from the school may not be read that day or parents may not be contactable by telephone. This means there may be cases where parents have not been aware of detentions in advance, but we have absolutely no evidence that this has led to children’s safety being compromised.
My noble friends’ amendment seeks to replace the present requirement, which I think we agree is problematic, with one under which parents must confirm that they are aware of a same-day detention after school, or must receive 24 hours’ notice of it. We well understand their intentions; we would all want parents to play a full part in ensuring high standards of behaviour and to be aware when their child is at school. I fear, however, that the amendments would cause similar problems to the current requirement. Asking that a parent confirms that they are aware of a same-day detention means that a teacher would be prevented from keeping a pupil back, even for 15 minutes at the end of the last lesson of the day, without first making arrangements to contact the parents. Noble Lords can imagine how long that could take and that on many occasions it will be impossible to gain confirmation at short notice that a parent is aware of a detention. I remind noble Lords of all the safeguards which are already in place to make quite sure that transport is there and that the young people do not have caring responsibilities, where after-hours detention would obviously not be appropriate.
There are other cases where an unco-operative parent could, in knowledge of such a requirement, ignore attempts by a school to contact them in order to prevent a same-day detention. They could simply let phone calls go to voicemail or not answer an e-mail, so the whole thing could escalate way beyond the 24 hours —and way past the time when the young person had done the disciplinary matter—and escalate the punishment to a level which was never intended. It is because of these consequences of well intended regulation that we believe it is necessary to remove the requirement and rely on the extensive existing safeguards, which require schools to act reasonably in all the circumstances.
Having said that we are not attracted to regulation we take immensely seriously the concerns raised today and in Grand Committee. We therefore propose that advice to schools on this matter could be strengthened to make sure that schools understand what they should do to act reasonably. An addition to the guidance on behaviour and discipline in schools will say:
“When judging whether a detention outside school hours is reasonable teachers should consider whether it is appropriate to give notice to parents”.
They should obviously make every effort to contact parents, but with all the other safeguards in place, and never in any circumstances take actions that would compromise the safety of the child.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I am grateful for the Minister giving way. Will she consider this point? She is stressing that the other requirements, particularly that the school act reasonably, are sufficient safeguards. Would she agree that in removing the requirement to give parents notice she is, in a sense, changing the threshold of what schools could regard as reasonable? Reasonableness is going to mean something else and it could mean—would mean I would argue—that it would be reasonable for the school not to try to inform parents. Therefore, the stress she is putting on the safeguard of reasonableness would actually be completely diminished.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I take the point the noble Baroness makes. However, we have to accept that schools take massive care of the children in their care and do not take these measures lightly. We are talking about short periods of detention after school for pupils who can get home safely; those who do not need to catch the school bus and so on. All those are already enshrined in the care and the regulation. We seek—and we hear the very grave concerns being expressed by noble Lords—to make quite sure the guidance is strengthened to ensure that child safety is never compromised by the school’s actions. We feel that the safeguards already in place strike the right balance between ensuring that children are safe and allowing schools to take proportionate action—to use their discretion and professional judgment—to establish the arrangements that work best for them.
We hope that my noble friends and the noble Baronesses will agree to work with us to see how we can strengthen the guidance that goes with these measures and meanwhile will feel able to withdraw their amendments.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Before the noble Baroness sits down, I want to clarify when she is proposing now. We were sent a copy of a draft document on detention, which says:
“When judging whether a detention outside school hours is reasonable teachers should consider whether it is appropriate to give notice to parents”.
Is the noble Baroness now saying that is going to be strengthened or is that the wording that is on offer? I want to clarify that point.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
These are draft guidance documents at the moment. We hear the strength of feeling that has been expressed around the House and would certainly welcome consultation to see if we can find a form of words that reassures noble Lords. We feel that all the measures are in place, but obviously some noble Lords feel that they are not strong enough, so we will be looking at the draft guidance to make quite sure the wording is appropriate.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for her reply. We would all agree with some of her opening remarks that there is strong public support for good behaviour in schools. We all know that that helps children to learn. However, I do not accept there is strong public support for this particular measure and like the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I, too, did some research over the summer with some ordinary parents and I had exactly the same responses as the noble Baroness.
The Minister said that schools must do this in a way which is most appropriate for the pupils with whom they are dealing. Where does it say that? It certainly does not say it in the legislation. It must say it, or something like it, in the guidance. My noble friend carefully went through the other duties that schools have to safeguard children, which have been laid into other statutes. I accept all that. Punishments have to be proportionate and reasonable and travel arrangements have to be considered. They are already there, but the question for a teacher looking at the guidance is: where are they? The guidance needs to have these duties clearly spelt out on the same page where a teacher is being told what they can do under this new law. It needs to be very clear.
I often wonder where this idea came from. My noble friend the Minister has told us that it came from the ASCL. Why does the ASCL have such influence over this Government? The other head teachers’ union does not have the same influence and other ordinary teachers’ unions do not. I am afraid I have a nasty suspicion that this bit of the Bill seeks to enable legislation to catch up with practice, and that some schools are following this practice without giving 24 hours’ notice. I accept that notes in satchels do not always get to parents and that the current requirement for 24 hours’ written notice often does not reach the parent and the parent is not notified. We are asking for something better than that. We are suggesting a way of ensuring that the parent is informed to enable them to make other arrangements for the child to get home safely, if possible. If they are not able to do so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, because they do not have a car and an alternative bus is not available, they can make the school aware that there could be a safeguarding problem if the child is kept in. It is then up to the school under the other duties that my noble friend has outlined to punish the child at a different time.
My noble friend suggested that some unco-operative parents may fail to answer the phone and let the message be recorded on the answerphone. I do not think that these parents have a crystal ball. When the phone rings, they cannot possibly know that it is the school ringing up to say that little Johnny will be kept in after school that day. That is stretching things beyond reality.
I am delighted that my noble friend has accepted that there is scope for strengthening the guidance. I was very pleased to hear that. She made it very clear on the record from the Dispatch Box that teachers should not do anything that compromises the safeguarding of the child. That gives me comfort. If we can work together to ensure that that is made crystal clear in the guidance, I will not feel that I need to return to this at a later stage. Can my noble friend nod and affirm that we can do that work and get the guidance to say something of that nature? It is vital that we help teachers to make good decisions about when to use this weapon in their armoury.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
Before the noble Baroness concludes, will she also reflect that essentially what we are setting in place is a two-tier style of punishment? If you think of it from the teacher’s point of view, what is underpinning this is that a detention on the same day as the crime that has been committed is more effective because it is closer in time to that crime. We will now have schools with two groups of pupils—those pupils who are eligible to receive that punishment and those who are not.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise to the noble Baroness but I am double tasking as a government spokesman and a Whip today. The rules at Report state that a noble Lord may not come back after the Minister has spoken.
Baroness Walmsley
Perhaps I may complete my remarks. I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley. As I have said, rural schools will not be able to use this measure but some urban schools will. However, as my noble friend Lord Storey said, not all urban schools will be able to use it because there may well be safeguarding issues in urban schools as well. However, as I said, I am comforted by what my noble friend the Minister has said. I look forward to further discussions with officials on how we can produce guidance that really helps teachers to do what they need to do but at the same time not compromise the safeguarding of children. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for interrupting my noble friend but he will be aware that the convention of the House is that 15 minutes is normally considered the maximum speaking time, and he has now been speaking for 19 minutes. I wonder whether he would be kind enough to wrap up his comments.
Lord Phillips of Sudbury
I apologise to the House for overrunning the conventional time. I suppose it is because I take such a profoundly serious view of these curtailments of free speech that I have overrun the 15 minutes. However, I will wrap up my remarks quickly. Not one of the statistics to which I referred relates to the subject matter of Clause 13, which is pre-charge publicity—not allegations but pre-charge publicity. As regards allegations, 28 per cent led to disciplinary proceedings, more than 50 per cent had some substance and 18 per cent involved suspensions.
I am grateful to my noble friend for the concessions he has made. He may have had to battle for some of the concessions that he has wrung out of his colleagues. However, he does not accept my Amendment 48, which deals with the raising of the cap on freedom of speech in the case of a teacher who resigns or is dismissed, or Amendment 51, which allows a parent whose child has come home complaining of an assault to at least e-mail the other parents in the class to ask them whether they have had any experience of Mr Jones doing what he ought not to do, or e-mailing the staff, for example. To prohibit that seems to me utterly wrong. I speak to these two amendments in that spirit.
Education Bill
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The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I am sorry if I am rather too new to this process. I though that the Minister stood just to address some of the narrow points that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, made. I hope the Committee will allow me to react, not surprisingly, to some of the comments that have been made. Is that in order?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It is perfectly in order if the right reverend Prelate addresses the amendments that have been set down.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
They are precisely what I want to address, as well as the debate that has just happened. I was here on Monday, when it seemed to me that the debates reflected a common purpose. Although they came from slightly different slants and slightly different views, they were not very far away. It is difficult not to regard the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, in a rather different way. Indeed, it is difficult for me to sit here without regarding it, perhaps mistakenly, as more akin to a full-frontal assault on the dual system as we have it.
I observe that the noble Lord began by saying that he is a member of the National Secular Society.
Lord Peston
The right reverend Prelate does not seem to understand my question. I was simply asking: do we know the facts? My view is that we do not. For example, I am not sure how many religious schools there are in the right reverend Prelate’s diocese, but does he know the religious composition of all the teachers in all those schools—and if so, can that be made public?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
It might help the Committee if this debate were continued on a different occasion, because we are straying from the amendments which are on the Table. The Committee stage is designed to focus very much on the specific amendments that are here, rather than the more general debate such as we have on Second Reading.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
I wanted to stress the point about the trusts because it seems to underline all 12 of these amendments, in terms of how they seek to unpick the dual system that we have and challenge so much of what is there about voluntary controlled or voluntary aided schools. I was grateful for the earlier points from the noble Baroness about Amendment 129. I think we have come to a similar point about that, in that quite clearly we would not want it to be impossible for head teachers to be reserved teachers. The Minister has kindly clarified that the current situation is that they may be, not that they are required to be. We certainly would not want any change in the legislation that made that impossible.
On Amendment 128, the voluntary aided power to use religious criteria for staff appointments is quite clearly a strong power. We readily acknowledge that, as would others here. It is bound to be regarded with concern by some—I appreciate that. However, the key for us is that trustees need to be able to ensure that the purposes of their trusts are being fulfilled. That is why the powers are given in quite the way that they are. Hence, an ability to appoint staff with a proven commitment to the religious character of the school is essential in order that the purposes of donors and the duties of trustees are not frustrated. That also seems fundamental within big society issues.
I jump forward to Amendment 136, which seems to be asking to allow reserved teachers to be appointed but not to allow them to be selected using any religious criteria. If that were included, I would find that a strange consequence. Would it not perhaps be a little like selecting a Labour candidate who may turn out to be a Conservative supporter? That may happen, but I would prefer not to see that in our church schools.
There are too many issues to want to dismantle the dual system. I do not want to go back over the more general points and debates that noble Lords have had about that previously. I also pick up the point made by the Minister on the “as is” issue. There are voluntary controlled schools that want to be able to change and become voluntary aided. That is currently the case. If they were to become academies, it seems to be important that what is available to them under the present situation should continue to be available under the new legislation. Similar points apply to independent schools which, in some cases, have similar trusts to those voluntary aided and voluntary controlled schools.
I believe that I have said enough to make the point about some of the concerns, in particular, but also about the more fundamental issues that underline them to make it clear why I have deep concerns about all 12 of these amendments. Rather than go through others in similar detail, I hope that what I have said will be understood and applied as they affect the rest of the amendments.
“This is subject to sub-paragraph (1A).(1A) If a leasehold interest in land is held for the purposes of a new Academy, this paragraph does not apply to—
(a) that or any other leasehold interest in the land, or(b) a freehold interest in the land.(1B) An Academy is a new Academy for the purposes of sub-paragraph (1A) if, by virtue of section 9(1)(a) (new educational institutions), the duty in section 9(2) (impact on other schools etc) applied when the Secretary of State was deciding whether to enter into Academy arrangements in relation to it.”
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I shall speak to the amendments to Schedule 14 in the name of my noble friend Lord Hill. They were the subject of his explanatory letter of 8 September. Concerns were raised in the other place and elsewhere about the breadth of the new powers in the land provisions. Many land provisions in the Bill merely re-enact existing powers in previous legislation, with a small number of amendments. There are two main areas where there are new powers. First, the Bill puts the protection of publicly owned land and public investment in land used by academies on a statutory rather than a contractual basis. I am sure that noble Lords will agree with this objective. Secondly, it introduces new powers to transfer the publicly funded land of foundation and voluntary schools to free schools and academies when a school closes or the land is otherwise disposed of. I seek to provide reassurance in relation to these powers in my remarks.
Amendments 139H, 139K and 139L reduce the reach of the second area of new powers so that they do not apply to land that is leased to a new academy by a private landlord. Where we are engaging in commercial negotiations with private landlords for the lease of land to new free schools, it is more appropriate to protect any public investment in that land by contractual means rather than in statute. In addition to speaking about these amendments, it may be helpful if I say a little more about the circumstances in which we envisage the powers being used in respect of land held by the trusts of schools and academies, many of which are church diocesan trusts.
While we will consider each case on its merits, where trustee land is being disposed of, our intention is that, as a general principle, the Secretary of State will consider using his powers to direct the transfer of land only where the value of the public investment in it is greater than 50 per cent. We shall have further detailed discussions with interested parties with a view to developing agreed guidance about the operation of these powers, including how the value of the land and the public investment in it is calculated. Similarly, the Secretary of State will not normally use his powers to transfer trustee-owned school land in which there has been public investment if the land continues to be used for other purposes of the trust where these obtain. If it were proposed that such land should be removed from educational use, yet in the view of the Secretary of State there were compelling reasons why it should be retained, any such transfer would take place only following full consultation with the trust and any relevant religious authority, and having regard to any relevant views of the Charity Commission. Should this arise, there would, of course, be appropriate payment to the trust in respect of the private interest in the land. Notwithstanding the above, where trust land that has been enhanced at public expense is disposed of, any public investment will continue to be protected in statute.
Finally, Amendments 139M to 139T are largely technical drafting improvements, most of which arose from our discussions with the Charity Commission. I beg to move.
The Lord Bishop of Hereford
My Lords, I will simply thank the Minister—and her officials, who have been in negotiation with the National Society—for the clarification that she has given.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, during the Recess I read a book about the lives of crofters in the Western Isles of Scotland during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s. Children had to leave the parental home in order to go to school with the result that families were broken up and teenagers were not supervised by their parents and received much less adequate care and supervision. For children in those situations this idea could have considerable value. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that there is no reason why this sort of service should not be provided by schools other than academies in appropriate situations. However, I understand why my noble friend Lord Lucas tabled the amendment to this Bill. I am not sure whether legislation is required. Perhaps the Minister will explain the situation in that regard. We must take advantage of what technology can offer to ensure that certain children can get as good an education as any other child—provided that the proper safeguards and protections are in place—without having to split up families.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, my noble friend Lord Lucas has spoken persuasively on this occasion of the merits of cyberlearning. We thank him for sharing that range of evidence and experience with the Committee. There is no doubt that this is an area of growing relevance, importance and potential. I am pleased to say that academies already have significant freedom about how they organise the education they deliver to best meet the needs of their students. This includes the use of distance and online learning where that is appropriate. Indeed, I understand that schools in this country increasingly provide services of this kind to deliver greater choice of subjects and teaching methods for pupils. That is clearly a good thing. It can also clearly be valuable for online teaching services to be available for pupils who are unable to attend school regularly, such as those groups which my noble friend Lord Lucas and Lady Walmsley have mentioned, which would, of course, include Gypsy and Traveller pupils, whom we discussed earlier this week, those who have been excluded or those in hospital, young offender institutions or prisons. Again, academies already have the freedom to provide such services for their pupils and maintained schools will have similar freedoms to do so. I assure the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that these freedoms will be available for maintained schools as well as academies.
We think that the noble Lord’s amendment goes a little too far in providing for the absence of a teacher. We think that the role of the teacher is crucial to the quality of provision to ensure coherence of the overall educational experience for the pupil. There remains an important role for an experienced professional and for a personal relationship between teacher and pupil. In the Government’s view, distance education of the kind described in the amendment, without the presence of a teacher at any time, represents a risk to pupil outcomes and educational experience.
Baroness Morris of Yardley
On a point of clarification, and drawing together two debates that we have had this evening, if a school were to open as a free school, would that not mean that it would not need a teacher?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
No, but they still need teachers. You are quite right: they do not need qualified teachers, but they need teachers who help to communicate and teach subjects to pupils.
In conclusion, we believe that much of what my noble friend intends is already possible and is already happening. To the extent that it is not, I would ask him to recognise the value that a good teacher can add to the educational experience of a pupil. We recognise that there is a growing place for technology, alternative teaching and learning provisions. Many of us will remember, with gratitude, the impact of inspirational teachers during our own education and the difference that that personal motivation and contact made to our enthusiasm about learning. On that basis, I hope that my noble friend has been reassured that those freedoms already exist and that we may not need to return to this on Report. Therefore, I urge him to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
I am very encouraged by what the noble Baroness says about all this being possible. I am also very pleased about what she said on the role of the church. I entirely agree with her. I hope that she will have a chance to pass that news on to the prison education service which appears determined to eliminate teachers and do it all online. Doubtless, I will come back to her or, I suspect, to my noble friend, on the subject of funding, which has arisen from time to time. The complexity of the guidance offered by this otherwise excellent department confuses local authorities from time to time and certainly schools as to whether particular arrangements qualify for funding and, if so, on what basis. To take a particular example, if a home-educated child wishes to go to a further education college at the age of 14, they can get no funding for that. Perhaps that is something to be followed up by letter rather than in this forum. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Education Bill
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Lord Lexden
If the noble Earl is asking whether the inspectors arrive without notice, the answer is no. There are cycles in which the inspections take place. The inspectors do not suddenly arrive at schools unannounced.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I thank my noble friends Lady Brinton and Lord Lexden for what they have said, and I hope that some of the concerns that my noble friend Lady Brinton raised have been addressed in the remarks of my noble friend Lord Lexden.
Education inspections in most independent boarding schools are carried out by independent inspectorates. Boarding schools, unlike day schools, are also subject to welfare inspections, which are carried out by Ofsted, as my noble friend set out. Where possible, Ofsted and independent inspectorates carry out joint inspections to minimise disruption to the schools concerned, but there are two separate inspection reports, published on two different websites, and that information is readily available on those websites.
The Secretary of State already has a power to appoint an independent inspectorate to undertake boarding welfare inspections in England. We intend to use this power to appoint the Independent Schools Inspectorate, which will mean that schools affiliated to the Independent Schools Council will be subject to a single inspection, covering both education and boarding welfare, which will be followed by a single published report. However, I stress that there will be two reports—one for education and one for welfare.
The clause replicates the measures that are already in place on education inspections to ensure that any independent inspectorate appointed operates effectively. It allows Ofsted to monitor inspections by independent inspectorates of the welfare of children in independent boarding schools and requires the chief inspector to prepare an annual report on those inspections. It also gives the Secretary of State a power to direct Ofsted to undertake a boarding inspection of any school at any time, including where the boarding provision would normally be inspected by an independent inspectorate. This is the same power as he has in relation to other types of inspection, but in practice we would expect this power to be used only in exceptional cases.
I hope that my noble friend will agree that these measures, when taken together, provide transparency, accountability and confidence in the arrangements for independent inspectorates to carry out welfare inspections in independent boarding schools. I reassure her that welfare inspections will continue in all schools, whether they are outstanding or not.
I also reassure my noble friend that safeguards for welfare inspections will be as robust as they are for education inspections, and that regulations will set out criteria for the appointment of independent inspectorates and for terminating any such appointment, if need be. The criteria in respect of boarding will mirror the criteria for appointment in respect of education.
My noble friend mentioned the HMC vote to leave the ISC. I hope that she has been reassured by the point made by my noble friend Lord Lexden. I suspect that I will not have covered other points in my reply, in which case I will write to my noble friend, but, meanwhile, I hope that she will feel free to withdraw the amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
My Lords, if I may, I want to ask the Minister a little more about unannounced and announced inspections. If I remember correctly, the Children's Commissioner for England, Professor Al Aynsley-Green, when he was in office, was particularly enthusiastic about his power to make unannounced inspections. Professor Eileen Munro, in her final report on safeguarding children, recently advocated the use of unannounced inspections, principally because they relieved organisations of a bureaucratic burden. She felt that that would be less burdensome to them than announced inspections. I would be interested to hear from the Minister what is the current situation with regard to those two kinds of inspection—announced and unannounced.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I will need to write to the noble Earl on that point, because I do not have the figures for the exact mix between announced and unannounced inspections and how they are carried out.
Baroness Brinton
My Lords, I am pleased to hear that the HTC will remain, but the point remains valid that the ISC could be in a state of flux and the financial inspection capability could be affected in future.
I am very grateful to my noble friend for saying that she will come back on detailed points, because there are probably too many to go through this afternoon, but the key things that have come up are the issue of announced and unannounced inspections, which remain a cause for me, and the principle of joining together education and welfare inspections. That remains a difficulty, and I should be grateful if the Minister would look at that again. The other key point that has not been covered is access to information. Having bits of a report somewhere is not the same as freedom of information on the detail of a report. As I mentioned in my speech, many schools in the independent sector would not be happy to have details such as that published and it might be pushed to the back. I am very grateful for the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I am sure that the Good Schools Guide would be interested in ensuring that parents have access to information for all the reasons I explained.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, access to information is crucial. I should like to be assured that all of us sitting around this table will have access to the reply to the noble Baroness.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I assure the noble Baroness that the reply will go to all Members of the Committee.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I hope that we can deal with this quickly. This clause amends Section 456 of the Education Act 1996, on the regulation of permitted charges, to achieve two objectives—first, to allow a charge for the cost of buildings and accommodation when a school provides an optional extra, and, secondly, to make an exception for early years provision whereby a charge can be made only for teaching staff engaged under contracts for services and allow a charge to be made for employed staff. It is a rather technical issue.
I have a number of concerns about the way in which these provisions might operate. I am very grateful to the Minister for two letters that he sent me, on 21 June and 20 July this year, clarifying the way in which the Government envisage these measures operating. The assurances depend to a large extent on the regulations behind the provisions, which cannot be made totally clear to me today, but I should be grateful if the Minister could put the position on record in her reply, which would at least give me and other Members some assurance about the operation of these measures.
Without delaying the Committee further I ask the Minister, first, to confirm that through regulations the measures will not enable schools to delay entry into the reception class, keep children in nursery classes longer, and therefore charge. Secondly, can she confirm that the measures will not enable schools to charge for any child in reception class, even if they are still aged four? Thirdly, will the measures enable charging only for teaching staff over and above the free entitlement? Fourthly, can the Minister also assure me that there will be some protection for the additional free hours that many local authorities currently provide for disadvantaged and vulnerable children; and, fifthly, that there will be some attempt to specify some concept of reasonableness in the charges that schools can make and how the regulations might define how the charges to parents may be made up so that they are reasonable? If we can get those assurances on record today, I am sure that it will take us forward.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, many schools provide high-quality early education provided by parents that is good for getting children ready for school. However, schools can currently effectively offer only the free entitlement—the 15 hours a week, 38 weeks a year—that all three and four year-old children are entitled to. This is because they cannot charge for extra early years education that they provide during school hours for three and four year-old pupils over and above the 15-hours’ free entitlement.
The previous Government took a power in the Childcare Act 2006 to make regulations enabling schools to charge for additional hours that they might wish to offer parents. The Bill, therefore, does not seek a power for schools to charge. It enables schools to reflect the costs of their provision in that charge. It is, in effect, a technical clause. It is about ensuring that charges for optional extras can include a proportion of building and accommodation costs and, for early years provision, the time of qualified teachers.
Why are we proposing this change? Because making school-based early years provision sustainable will create greater choice for parents about the type, quality and flexibility of early years provision that they can take up for their child. We want to enable parents to take up provision above their free entitlement in the maintained sector, if they wish to, as they already can in private, voluntary and independent providers.
Enabling schools to charge appropriately will help them to remain financially viable, but I stress that schools will not be permitted to make a profit from charging and will be able to charge only up to the costs of delivering the provision. I reassure the noble Baroness that that will of course be a reasonable charge and it must be within boundaries.
Furthermore, it will not be permissible in any way for schools to charge for early education that is part of the free entitlement, including—I reassure the noble Baroness on this point, too—the new entitlement for disadvantaged two year-olds, or for reception provision. The Government remain committed to reception classes being free, with full-time provision of 25 hours a week from the September after the child turns four. The noble Baroness referred to the letters from my noble friend the Minister of 21 June and 20 July, which we hope will have given her further reassurances on those points.
There is no ability for schools to charge for education during school hours for pupils of compulsory school age, and there is no ability for them to charge for hours provided to parents for free under the early years entitlement—a measure which the noble Baroness introduced and which we have extended in this Bill. We are committed to ensuring that reception provision is free, and there will be no ability to hold children up in nursery classes, as she feared. Through the Bill, we want to ensure that schools can charge for additional, optional provision in a way that enables them to cover their costs and provides greater choice of provision for the parent and a consistent and high-quality early education for the child.
If the noble Baroness raised other points which I have not covered, I will of course write to her, but I hope that, with those reassurances, she will feel happy to withdraw her objection to the clause standing part of the Bill.
The Earl of Listowel
I thank the noble Baroness for raising this issue, as it has given us an opportunity to learn more about the Government’s intentions. I warmly welcome the purpose of the clause, which is to allow an extended offer of high-quality early years care in nurseries attached to schools. We all know how important high-quality early years care is in regard to outcomes for children, so this is welcome news. Particularly in nurseries attached to schools one finds a high level of stability in the staff, with turnover being only about 4 or 5 per cent, compared with in the region of 15 per cent in some day centres. That is also very welcome.
I also thank the noble Baroness and the Minister for their correspondence on early years, which I appreciated.
Education Bill
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Lord Howarth of Newport
My Lords, I would like to speak in support of Amendment 111A. I congratulate my noble friend Lady Whitaker on tabling it and congratulate the Committee on reaching it. I understand that it has been a long and winding road, and I hope that the weary travellers will not mind me joining them for this short step along their great trek.
My noble friend’s amendment changes the requirements to be met when a new school is proposed, so that the criteria are set out,
“which the design of the school must meet, following best practice as prescribed by the Secretary of State”.
I understand the Government’s desire to minimise the barriers to the creation of new schools, the introduction of greater variety in the school system and the liberation of new energies—and, of course, to minimise bureaucracy—but it would be a mistake to cut corners on planning and design. They go together, and it has been one of the achievements of your Lordships' House in recent years to amend the town and country planning system to require planners to take account of and have regard to the importance of good design. The Secretary of State’s outbursts against the architects associated with Building Schools for the Future programme were unwarranted and inappropriate. I declare my interest as an honorary fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and chair of the Associate Parliamentary Group on Architecture and Planning.
I am very happy that it appears that a truce has now broken out between the Secretary of State and the RIBA. I was pleased to read in the 8 July edition of Building Design, in the report by the president of the RIBA, Ruth Reed, that she said that the Secretary of State had acknowledged that the James review was simplistic. Noble Lords will recall that the James review said that school design should be standardised to save money. She reported that the Secretary of State is,
“keen to get good value for money for school buildings. He is aware design matters and he did recognise that you have to invest in design … He certainly didn’t come across as someone who doesn’t like good design”.
It is encouraging to have that confirmation.
I entirely believe that Ministers want good design in school buildings. The question is how that good design can be assured or how we can do as much as possible to assure good design, particularly under the provisions of this legislation. If I may also quote from the circular that was sent out to members of the RIBA immediately after the meeting with the Secretary of State, we were told that one of the key outcomes of the meeting was an agreement to work with the Department for Education and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to consider how to achieve the best value from good school design, particularly in mapping out scenarios for the future delivery of schools. Ruth Reed said this was a productive meeting. She said:
“We have agreed to assist in identifying the constraints to achieving well designed schools including those in procurement and planning. Well designed schools”—
she observed—
“will always be value for money because they deliver optimum conditions for learning which last for decades to come.”
It would be helpful if the Minister would comment on the meeting between the president of the RIBA and the Secretary of State for Education, as well as with Mr Penrose, the Minister at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport with responsibility for architecture, if he would explain how his department intends to develop this work with the RIBA, whether he sees implications for this legislation and whether he thinks there may be a case for introducing an amendment to strengthen the commitments that the Government make in this legislation to the good design of school buildings.
Hitherto, I have lacked confidence that that would be the case. I understand that the department is consulting about making change of use easier, so that, for example, offices might be converted into new schools under permitted development rights. I seek reassurance from the Minister on that point. At face value it would appear that new schools might be opened in any old building. Perhaps he would tell us what guarantees that basic standards of health and safety, and of accessibility, can be assured by the Government.
More importantly, if “anything goes” in school design, there is a risk that the quality of education will suffer. Good design, as my noble friend said, and as the president of the RIBA also said, helps to create an environment that supports learning; is stimulating in the best sense; helps to restrain and minimise bad behaviour, ill discipline and vandalism; and creates the flexibility needed to accommodate different sorts of teaching groups and changes in the curriculum.
My noble friend’s Amendment 116A is to be debated in a later group, but she is right to stress the desirability of Ofsted reporting, among other matters, on the effectiveness of buildings and their design on the education provided in them. Design is only one of the factors that make for good education. Outstanding teachers teaching bright and motivated children will create good education in almost any circumstances. An extreme case that I am aware of was in Albania, after the fall of the Hoxha regime, when the schools were derelict shacks. There was no glass in the windows and there were no pencils for the children to write with. Yet when Albanian children visited my then constituency of Stratford-upon-Avon, I strongly suspect they had a better knowledge of Shakespeare than the children being educated in schools in Stratford-upon-Avon. They definitely had a better knowledge of Byron.
We have seen in the English public schools that good teachers teaching well-motivated pupils are able to provide first-class education in conditions of Hogarthian squalor. Good design is not more important than good teaching. Good design supports good teaching. Policy and the legislative framework should be such that the whole system and the standards set by the Government support the generality of teachers and pupils, in particular those who work in disadvantaged communities. Of course we should share experience. The system should support school leaders to benefit from the experience of design that has often been hard won in other places.
The report in the Times today of the Government’s announcement yesterday does little to encourage me to have confidence that we are going to see an insistence on good design in the new generation of schools that are to be built. One must, of course, welcome the announcement of funding for the rebuilding of schools and the building of new schools, but we are advised that this programme will be funded through public/private partnerships. We have seen in public/private partnership and PFI-funded school developments some environment and architectural atrocities, so I hope the Minister will be able to reassure us.
It is very difficult working through all the complexities of the contractual process of PFI to build in a requirement for good design. Because of this complexity, I understand that a handful of large contractors will bid for contracts and that contracts will be negotiated with the department or with the new funding agency for schools. I am worried about that because it seems to me that kind of system will not sufficiently provide for local factors to be taken into account. It is the sensitive and expert observation of local needs that is so often the key to good design, so I hope the Minister will be able to explain that the system that the Government are introducing will indeed provide assurances that design factors will have the prominence and the emphasis that they ought to have.
More broadly, I think the Government should think very carefully about the signal that they send about the importance and standing of education and schools if the policy is really that anything goes in school design. If grottily designed schools are to be permitted, the Government seem to be saying that grotty education is okay. That is absurd because that is not what the Government mean at all.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for intervening on the noble Lord. He is making a fascinating speech, but it is trespassing on being a Second Reading speech rather than concentrating on the amendments in front of us. I think the Committee would be grateful if the noble Lord would draw his remarks to a conclusion on the amendment.
Lord Howarth of Newport
I understand the noble Baroness is very delicately hinting to me that I am going on too long. I think that my remarks have been very closely focused on the amendment, but I will rather quickly wind them up. I think the noble Baroness will agree that it is closely relevant to the amendment for me to note that the Bill would increase the power of the Secretary of State to make land available for free schools. Will she say whether that means that the Secretary of State can by fiat bypass the role of the local planning authority? Planning expresses the claims of the whole local community, not just of a particular group, however enthusiastic it might be. The system should not be rigged to support the group proposing free schools: the sponsors and the particular parents of children of school age who are keen to see the school. A school is a very important presence in an area. Its presence affects everyone; it affects the movement of traffic and makes demands on infrastructure. Sites for new schools should be appropriate, and that appropriateness should be determined by local communities. There are complex judgments to be made, and they ought to be informed by local knowledge and concern for all the legitimate issues within the community.
I support the thrust of my noble friend’s amendment. My only reservation is that it seems to be a charter for prescriptiveness by the Secretary of State, and I would rather that she had couched her amendment in the terms that we have built into existing planning law and that the Bill should simply require that all those concerned with the promotion of the development of a new school should have regard for the importance of good design. Perhaps we can come back to it on Report in something like those terms.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for interrupting the noble Lord. We are in rather strange circumstances. We have agreed to complete this important group of amendments but we need to finish by 4.30. Perhaps we could make our contributions as succinct as possible in order that the noble Baroness and I have a chance to wind up.
Lord Ouseley
Thank you very much. I acknowledge what the noble Baroness has said, and I am about to conclude. However, I have not made many interventions in Committee and I intend to speak as fully as I can while being as brief as I think is reasonable.
The protected characteristics under the Education Act 2000 provide us with a basis to enable some of the other amendments in this area to address this issue. The amendments will need to remain as explicit as they are here if we are to do justice to what we want to see achieved, through inspection reports, in addressing the range of educational needs across all different groups of children. It is particularly important that we include those characteristics and enable, as part of any follow up, the guidance that the chief inspector should have.
When we consider groups on the basis of race, it is easy enough for a report to be blunt in the way in which it states that it has dealt with the issue of race and ethnicity. However, if you look across the whole range, groups such as Traveller and Gypsy children are very often excluded when inspections are taking place and the report does not relate explicitly and specifically to those groups which are underachieving, and the quality of education that is being inspected in the school tends not to address those particular needs.
Bearing in mind the time factor, I conclude by asking the Minister to explain why, when looking at the range of needs, the sharp focus is restricted to only two categories. Why is not this comprehensive amendment—which enables a broadening of the categories while maintaining a sharp focus—an appropriate way forward?
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, our names have been added to Amendments 115 and 118, so I will speak very briefly. First, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about the narrow focus on educational achievement which ignores the wider role of education in providing a safe and happy environment where all children can thrive and be healthy and confident. We believe that well-being should include such things as nutrition, exercise, relationships, respect for each other and how to overcome low self-esteem. A good school will include all this in the curriculum, but it does not mean that we should exempt all schools from having that assessed and checked from time to time.
The noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, gave a very coherent case for why Amendment 118 is important. It is important that we check that the Government’s rhetoric when they introduced the pupil premium can be backed up by independent assessment in the longer term, particularly in light of the new autonomous school structures. If we are not careful, disadvantaged children will get left behind. We need independent assessment to double- check that all is going well with the way that the money is being spent. I sense people’s frustration at the late hour and I will say no more at this stage.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I shall try to speak very quickly, which in no way reflects the seriousness and importance of the group of amendments we have just been discussing. The existing arrangements for inspection have become cluttered and crowded. Inspectors face the challenge of having to form a discrete judgment on just about everything schools do. The cumulative effect of this is that we have lost the sharp focus—which my noble friend referred to and the noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, picked up—on those things that are the fundamental responsibilities of schools.
Clause 40 seeks to address this by streamlining the reporting arrangements so that they focus on four key areas: pupils’ achievement, the quality of teaching, the effectiveness of leadership and pupils’ behaviour and safety. In doing so, inspectors must consider pupils’ spiritual, moral and cultural development and how the needs of all groups of pupils, including in particular those with SEN or a disability, are being met.
As far as Amendments 115 and 116 are concerned, schools themselves remain under a duty to promote pupil well-being and community cohesion. The provisions in Clause 40, including the specific requirements around behaviour and safety and spiritual, moral, social and cultural development, provide the right structure.
Baroness Flather
Will the noble Baroness take on board that it is not just about culture?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Indeed we take that on board.
Amendments 118 and 120 seek to ensure that particular groups of pupils are considered as part of school inspections; namely, those benefiting from the pupil premium and those given specific reference in the Equality Act 2010. Clause 40 requires inspectors to consider the needs of the range of pupils at the school. This is a phrase lifted from the current inspection legislation. It is a useful catch-all that avoids the needs for lists in the primary legislation. Inspectors will pay particular attention to the extent to which gaps are narrowing between different groups of pupils in a school and compared to other schools. They will evaluate teaching with an eye to how well teachers engage, motivate and challenge the most able pupils.
In the case of protected groups, additional assurance is provided by the fact that Ofsted is subject to the public sector equality duty, which is provided for in the Equality Act 2010. This commits the inspectorate to playing its part in promoting equality and eliminating discrimination, including through its inspection activity. We do not therefore believe that it is necessary to replicate this within the clause. The best place for these references is not in the primary legislation, but in the framework and supplementary guidance—the detailed documents that determine how inspections are delivered on the ground—and that is where they will be found under the new system.
The last set of amendments in this group all seek to add to the inspection provisions explicit references to various subjects and aspects. Amendments 117 and 121 concern linguistic skills and modern foreign languages. I entirely endorse what was said by the noble Baronesses, Lady O’Neill and Lady Coussins. Here I would highlight the benefit of the new arrangements in giving inspectors more opportunity to focus on teaching and learning, observe lessons, listen to pupils read, and talk to individuals and groups of pupils. In terms of inspection of modern foreign languages, Ofsted conducts a rolling programme of subject surveys, and that will continue to be the way in which it assesses individual curriculum areas in future.
Moving to careers advice, I note that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, and the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, spoke on this on behalf of our joint noble friend Lord Boswell of Aynho. This will be captured within the new inspection arrangements. Inspectors will consider, for example, the extent to which pupils have a well informed understanding of the options and challenges facing them as they move through school and on to the next stage of their education, training and employment.
I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, raised the matter of school buildings and design at the recent meeting hosted by the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton. I am aware that we have discussed this before and, if she will forgive me, I will skip over a further to reply on that, but I assure her that what she says is being taken on board.
As the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Huyton, pointed out during Second Reading,
“There are always perfectly good reasons to add to an inspector’s remit”.—[Official Report, 14/6/11; col. 737.]
However, we have a real opportunity here to start afresh, to streamline the requirements on inspectors, to provide more coherence to the arrangements, to clarify to schools what is expected of them and to provide parents with more meaningful assessments of their child’s school. It is vital that Ofsted is allowed to stay focused on the key aspects set out in Clause 40. This will not be the last time that we discuss these important issues, but I hope for the moment that the noble Baroness will support this important ambition by withdrawing her amendment.
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for skating so very quickly through her response and yet managing to be so thorough. I shall be very brief. I thank her for her confirmation that well-being and community cohesion are within the scope of inspections as undertaken by Ofsted, that Ofsted will inspect how well schools narrow the gap, that the equality duty covers Ofsted and that all ranges of children within the school have to be considered by it. That will, I hope, include those schools that have the groups of children about whom I had some concerns.
On languages, I welcome her statement that there can be themed surveys. I think there is a danger that including languages will get us on to the slippery slope of including geography, physics, history and all the rest, which we do not want to do. Finally, I welcome the fact that, as my noble friend Lady Brinton and I have just noticed, lines 30 and 31 on page 36,
“the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils at the school”,
are lifted directly from Every Child Matters, which proves that this Government believe that every child does matter. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Education Bill
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments. First, much of the anxiety about the current grading system is because people have lost confidence in the way that the examinations are marked at the moment. I remember that, when I was doing O-levels and such-like many moons ago, there was much more confidence in the marking system and the legitimacy and accuracy of the examination boards. Maybe that was misplaced but that was certainly how I was brought up. Perhaps the scandals in recent times about the quality of the marking and so on have raised concerns and people want to dig deeper to know the underlying marks, which is understandable.
I am anxious, however, as to how this would work in practice. If the grades and the marks are published and if some children will only be two or three marks below the next grade up, if you run that parallel system of marks and grades, you will engender a lot of new appeals because anyone who is a short step away from the next grade up will flood the market with appeals. Unless we have a mechanism for managing that, therefore, there will be more discontent than satisfaction. I am not sure the system can run in parallel in the way the noble Lord is proposing. It may be, however, that the famous e-mail, which I should have seen but have not, spells out what the Government intend and will satisfy those points.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, my noble friend has made strong arguments for making comprehensive, transparent information on exam results and school performance available to all and we are committed to increasing the amount of information available so that people can build their own measures and reach their own views about progress in the education system. We have already published more information than ever before.
The 2010 tables enabled users to download the school-level data underlying the table so that they could carry out their own analyses. In January 2011, school spending data were published alongside performance information. In March 2011, we published school-level information on attainment in individual GCSE subjects. As has been stated, in relation to exam marks, the candidates do have the right to request their marks. In practice, awarding bodies do provide marks—and, where requested, exam scripts—to schools and candidates. That means, for instance, universities can ask applicants to provide individual marks in order to differentiate performance within a grade.
In relation to publication of marks in data sets, we want to make as much information as possible available about exam results, and we are happy to commit to considering the practicality of obtaining and publishing marks as part of the national school-level data we are releasing. I understand my noble friend will be speaking to officials about this at a meeting on 25 July.
However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has said, there will be practical issues that we need to consider. Collecting individual marks rather than just grades would mean a significant increase in the quantity of data that the department would need to collect and process, which we would need to ensure we could manage without undue cost. That said, although it is the Government’s intention to collect and publish as much information on qualifications as we can, in relation to having both marks and grades it is the case that the same mark on a harder paper would represent better performance and it would not always be fair to candidates simply to add up the raw marks to give the overall result. A uniform mark scale puts all those raw marks on the same scale, which is then converted into the grade boundaries.
The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned confidence in exam awarding bodies. Ofqual was established by the previous Government to improve and strengthen confidence in the standards of exam awarding bodies. Ensuring that that confidence is restored is what Ofqual has at its heart. It may of course be that our memories of the olden days when everything was so much better have somehow managed to make us feel that it was better; I seem to remember from my days of A-levels that there were still quite a lot of queries to the boards, but we were much more intimidated in making those queries.
I hope that, with the assurance that we will give serious consideration to the practicality of publishing marks as part of the school-level data that we are making available to all, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
The Earl of Listowel
I have a quick question. Is there a measure that is easily understood and easily available to judge the progress that schools make in improving a child’s education? The Committee was discussing comparing schools. Is there a quick and easy measure that is easily accessible to say that this school is particularly good at taking children from one level to another, rather than judging all schools by one standard? Does that make sense?
Lord Lucas
My Lords, the difficulty is that the key stage 2 and key stage 1 data that are published are so coarse. The idea that you can effectively chuck children into one of three pots at the age of 11 and sensibly use that as a measure of anything is not something that I am comfortable with. If there were a better assessment, a teacher assessment, of where children were on a finer scale, you would have something that you could more reliably use to chart progress. Because of the coarseness of the base indicators, you can really only measure these things when large numbers of pupils are involved and the coarseness evens out. At the level of a primary school it is really pretty difficult, but at a big secondary you can get somewhere. Perhaps the Minister has something to add to that. I hope that the Government will consider releasing more and better data as part of what they are doing to improve the value-added indicator, which is a pretty important part of looking at how schools do.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Before my noble friend sits down, the Government are looking at progress reports for schools, which would give a more descriptive picture of where schools were moving.
Lord McAvoy
The Catholic schools that I know, and which I have the most experience of, incorporate all the various subjects that my noble friend mentions. There is nothing wrong with that. I go and speak to modern studies classes and I assure my noble friend that their opinions are extremely varied. These schools encompass everything. They get involved in fair trade, mission work for Africa and raising funds. They do terrific work based on their faith and it should not be mocked. I believe that if people choose to say that school, home and church are a trinity, they are entitled to do so. I very much oppose the amendments.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Before we continue, I should say that this has been a fascinating debate and I rather sense that we could carry on all afternoon, but I am rather taken with the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, that we should try to schedule a debate on this topic where we would have more time to discuss it. In the context of scrutinising amendments in Committee, though, I wonder whether we might just hear from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield who was trying to get in and then move on to the opposition winders. Would that be acceptable to the Committee?
The Earl of Listowel
If I may just interject, strong arguments are being made on all sides but I would like to make one assertion. It is important for children to have some experience of the numinous, of the higher power, of the spiritual life, if you like, in their childhoods, but particularly for some children who have a lot of chaos in their lives. Many young boys, for instance, growing up without fathers, children whose parents are separating or children whose parents suffer from issues around substance misuse do not have a strong sense of belonging to a family. As they go through life, a few of them may enter the care system. Often they move on from there with very little support. A significant number of those who do not have that support from a family may end up falling by the wayside in various ways. For some of them to be able to look back at an experience in their childhood when they felt at one with a group and had some contact with a god or a numinous sense of something beyond themselves, for a few of them in their adult life that may be an important experience where they can look for their own redemption and find somewhere that they can belong, though one means or another.
What concerned me in what the right reverend Prelate said is that we are not really discussing whether there will be one kind of spiritual practice in schools or another. I think that he was saying that if we go along with the amendments, his concern might be that in many schools it will start withering on the vine and there will simply be a formal gathering but not with this spiritual, reflective sense of a contact with a higher power. That may be what he was driving at.
Baroness Perry of Southwark
My Lords, my name is added to the amendment. I just say to my noble friend that, although I urge him to continue to look kindly on removing the need for licensing from schools and colleges, perhaps this is an opportunity to look more widely at some of the other places where young people need licences, such as small sports clubs, and so on, where if they have even a radio playing in the background, they must get a licence. We need to encourage young people, not make life more difficult for them. I hope that, in their consideration of the issue, the Government will look more widely than simply schools and colleges.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I know that many in this House share my noble friend's view that public performance of music should not be licensable in schools. We agree that schools currently face unnecessary bureaucracy when they organise events such as school plays, concerts or swimming galas, and we are taking steps to address that. We heed the warnings of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but we have announced our intention to consult on Schedule 1 to the Licensing Act 2003, which currently regulates the public performance of live music and performance of other creative and community activities, such as dance, plays, film and indoor sport. Our intention, subject to the consultation, is to deregulate those activities as far as possible in schools. That is possible through secondary legislation.
The Government have also expressed clear support for the Live Music Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, which completed its Committee stage on Friday. I know that, because I was there. It seeks to deregulate in certain circumstances the provision of live, unamplified music in most locations and live, amplified music in workplaces such as schools, as well as licensed premises such as public houses, subject to restrictions on audience size. These planned changes will free schools from the unnecessary bureaucracy they currently face and allow them to use music in a sensible way to deliver the best possible education for their pupils. On the basis of that reassurance, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am very content with that reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, education is about helping every child to make progress and reach their full potential, and that includes those pupils who have a high ability or aptitude for learning. There are many ways in which schools can support and challenge those pupils with the highest ability, including, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell pointed out, setting and streaming. Where setting is done well and is regularly reviewed, it can raise standards, and teachers are free to do this. He asked, if it was so good to stream pupils in maths, why it did not happen also in geography. The answer is the numbers taking those particular subjects. You need a critical mass for each subject in order to make streaming an effective tool.
Schools target their resources in the way that they feel will be of most benefit to their pupils. That could include the provision of extracurricular activities or outreach programmes with local universities or colleges. We have removed much of the ring-fencing of funds that restricted schools’ ability to make their own decisions about how to drive their improvement.
Today, in response to the Bew report, we have announced that higher level tests for year 6 pupils will continue to be available for schools to stretch the most able pupils, if they wish. We will consider how to incorporate results from these tests in performance tables to give credit to schools that support their highest attaining pupils. Within a slimmed-down national curriculum, it is possible for schools to design a wider curriculum that best meets the needs of all their pupils: for example, pupils with a particular aptitude for languages taking more language subjects.
My noble friends made the important point about children from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular. One of the key points about the pupil premium, which is given to support schools in helping those pupils, is that we have given schools the freedom on how to spend it. Schools could, therefore, use those funds towards additional support for high-aptitude or high-ability pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them succeed. School governing bodies already have a duty to promote high standards of educational achievement and the well-being of all pupils at the school. I hope that my noble friend will understand that we are not attracted to a particular further duty.
In Amendment 107, my noble friend also seeks to promote greater co-operation between schools to provide for the needs of this group of children. We strongly support collaborative working between schools in the interests of their pupils, be those children with a particular interest, aptitude or need. As my noble friend said, there are many positive examples, such as schools providing a particular qualification at one school and pooling their interested pupils so that there are enough to warrant the course. We have had examples of Japanese or some specialist forms of learning where classes can be put together to provide a quorum to follow a particular programme. Schools have the necessary powers and freedoms to do this without new primary legislation.
The noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Jones, asked why we got rid of the gifted and talented scheme. It was actually the previous Government who took the decision to end the gifted and talented scheme. Our strategy for education is about raising standards for all pupils, and that of course includes pupils with natural ability or aptitude. As my noble friend said, those children are our future leaders in business, our future doctors and teachers, our future engineers and scientists. I agree with my noble friends Lady Perry and Lady Sharp that it is also about those with the creative and manual skills. I entirely endorse their enthusiasm for the World Skills Competition in October, where we will see some of the most skilled young people from our country and around the world. We must not forget the abilities and aptitudes in those practical skills as well.
Schools already have the necessary freedom to work together to ensure that all the pupils in their care get an education that stretches and develops them. That is backed up by accountability through Ofsted inspections. More performance information on the progress that schools make with the highest achieving pupils will be part of that. With those assurances, I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing the amendment and supporting our approach.
The Earl of Listowel
Before the noble Lord responds, I think that I am right in thinking that a Select Committee of this House, when discussing science education, drew particular attention to the lack of lab technicians and the difficulty that that posed for young people to spend time in the lab to do experiments. I encourage the Minister to consider that issue and consider what progress has been made since that report was published two years ago.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday at 11.45 am.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Garden of Frognal
If my noble friend will forgive me, I invite the noble Lord, Lord Low to speak to his amendment in the group.
Lord Low of Dalston
I am very happy to oblige the Committee. As my amendment has already been referred to several times and spoken to very eloquently by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, there is not really a lot for to me to say, but it is obviously correct that I should speak to it.
Before I do that, I want to make a few comments on some of the other amendments in this large group. Some work is required on the section of the Bill dealing with careers guidance to ensure that it is effectively disability-proofed. I know that the Minister is very sympathetic on that matter, so I hope that he will be able to give me reassurances on one or two points.
First, in supporting the amendment moved by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, I seek clarification. When the amendment refers to “professionally qualified” careers practitioners, is it clear that the new professional quality standards include comprehensive training for all careers guidance practitioners on working with disabled young people and adults? It is very important that those working in the field should know about the barriers which disabled people experience, the perceptual barriers that often restrict their career choices.
I also want to be sure that the triennial report for which the noble Lord, Lord Boswell, calls in his amendment would include the effect of the provisions in this section of the Bill on disadvantaged groups of young people, specifically including young people with a learning difficulty and/or disability.
I should like to say a little more about Amendments 86E and 86F in the name of the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones, because they deal with a very important issue: the age range during which careers guidance should be provided. Those two amendments would extend the age range through which schools must provide careers guidance from 14 to 16 to 12 to 18. That is particularly necessary for disabled young people, as many will stay in school up to the age of 19, and their most critical decisions usually take place between the ages of 16 and 19.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission is concerned that the age range for careers guidance provided for in the Bill is too narrow. It is particularly concerned that starting careers guidance at 14 is too late adequately to address equality issues associated with subjects or career choices. It is also concerned that the new duty requiring careers guidance to be delivered at key stage 4 only, from 14 to 16, will mean a regression from the current statutory provision that requires a programme of careers education to be delivered for key stages 3 and 4, from 11 to 16.
Young people begin to develop ideas about careers at an early age, and the commission’s evidence suggests that starting careers guidance at 14 will present a major barrier to raising aspirations and equipping young people to make future decisions free from stereotyped ideas. Evidence-based reviews and research have consistently called for career-related learning to begin in primary school—as it currently does in Scotland, which is usually ahead of England in educational matters—so that high aspirations and achievement can be encouraged early. A new report from the commission indicates that primary school pupils’ aspirations are formed and are higher at a relatively young age. The noble Baroness, Lady Howe of Idlicote, has already referred to the evidence from that report which shows that three-quarters of children at primary school want to go into higher education—among girls, this figure is more than 80 per cent. Gender influences begin very early, with boys in primary school interested in sport and girls in performance, hairdressing and nursing. Evidence from the EHRC’s triennial review reveals the extent to which particular groups continue to experience a higher level of occupational segregation, particularly related to gender, ethnicity and disability. The commission believes that school careers services have a key role in providing clear, impartial guidance to help inform young people’s choices for long-term career-related experiences and progression, free from career-limiting stereotyped ideas.
Before I sit down, I clearly need to refer to my amendment, which would place a duty on the governing bodies and head teachers of schools to provide unlimited face-to-face careers guidance for all young people with a learning difficulty and/or disability, whether or not they have a statement of special educational needs and in both mainstream and specialist settings. The amendment more or less speaks for itself. It is a good idea that the Secretary of State should prescribe standards for careers guidance, in the manner provided for in the new clause tabled by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hughes and Lady Jones. It is obviously right that we should place on governing bodies and head teachers of schools a duty to comply with the standards set out by the Secretary of State.
I want to underline two particular points in my new clause. First, on “face-to-face”, we know that the careers service will offer web-based and telephone helpline advice for all students, but disabled learners, in particular, require face-to-face support. Secondly, I have put “unlimited” in the new clause simply to ensure that the duty is to provide as much guidance as is required and that it is not arbitrarily limited to a set amount or quota. I hope very much that this new clause will commend itself to the Minister, as it seeks to impose duties at the local level, where they can most effectively be implemented.
Baroness Hughes of Stretford
I rise briefly to support my noble friend. We have heard a lot from the Minister and his noble friend about burdens and requirements on schools, but as I am sure he knows, the entitlement was not designed so that every school had to provide the whole range of diplomas. Within an area, however, a young individual was able to access all of them. I am looking at this from the other end of the kaleidoscope, if you like; it was not a burden on schools but an entitlement for a young person. They could study for a diploma somewhere accessible in their local area. Therefore I agree with my noble friend that it seems perverse and unnecessary of the Government to repeal this entitlement. If there is a genuine urge to achieve parity of esteem between vocational courses and academic subjects, it is hard to understand why this clause has been included in the Bill in the light of everyone’s desire to achieve parity.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
Clause 28 is the first of two clauses related to the diploma entitlement. This clause removes the duty on local authorities in England to secure the diploma entitlement for 16 to 18 year-olds. The provisions being amended are not yet in force.
High-quality vocational education, just as much as academic education, is crucial to improving England’s educational performance. In that, I am in total agreement with the noble Baronesses, Lady Wall and Lady Hughes. That is why my right honourable friend the Secretary of State asked Professor Alison Wolf to carry out her review of vocational qualifications. Professor Wolf published her report on 3 March. In it, she found some areas of great strength. Places on the best apprenticeships, such as those provided by Network Rail or Rolls-Royce, are highly regarded by employers and more oversubscribed than the most desirable course at the best university. There are excellent qualifications available, providing clear routes for progression into full-time employment or further study in higher education. However, these examples of excellence do not add up to an excellent system and are too often provided in spite of rather than because of the structures that Government have created. The diploma entitlement is one such example where a focus on structure and process has been taken too far.
As I have said, the provisions being amended here are not yet in force. Were they to be implemented as originally intended, they would place a duty on every local authority to secure access for 16 to 18 year-olds to all 14 diploma subjects at all levels, regardless of local needs or any other educational priorities. I reassure noble Lords that this clause does not remove diplomas or any of their constituent qualifications. Nor does it prevent providers of education to 16 to 18 year-olds from offering diplomas if they so wish. I entirely agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Wall, that the diploma in engineering has been the outstanding success of this particular qualification. We cannot say the same about the rest of the range of diplomas that were on offer.
The Government believe that schools and colleges should not be obliged to offer every diploma. They should be free to decide which qualifications to teach, according to the needs and aspirations of their students. Indeed, the Association of Colleges has said that it has always been uncertain about the diploma entitlement and that it has,
“always wanted greater freedom for colleges to offer courses and qualifications which best meet the needs of young people”.
The Association of School and College Leaders has welcomed the removal of the diploma entitlement, saying that,
“it was not practical to offer all lines to all students”.
Edge, which has done so much to promote vocational education, has said that,
“it was always going to be difficult to deliver the entitlement, especially in rural areas”.
Following Professor Wolf’s review of vocational education, we are embarking on a substantial programme of reforms. We have already confirmed that some valued vocational qualifications will be funded for teaching in September 2011. We have announced that industry professionals and FE lecturers will be allowed to teach in schools. We have clarified that schools and colleges are free to offer any vocational qualification offered by a regulated awarding organisation. By removing the diploma entitlement, we are ensuring that schools and colleges are free to consider which qualifications—academic or vocational—meet the real needs of their students, enabling them to progress into further study or a job. I repeat: this clause does not remove any diplomas or other vocational option for young people. It removes a bureaucratic and burdensome requirement on local authorities, schools and colleges.
Baroness Wall of New Barnet
I thank the Minister for her response, and some of the things which she has shared with us are really quite encouraging. Nevertheless, I think a concern remains that the opportunity will be removed if it is not widespread. Regarding the comments of Professor Wolf, she made those at the very early stages. After looking at the evidence she has in fact since said that diplomas do provide opportunities for young people to take either the academic or vocational route without feeling discriminated against in any way, and that they give equality of credence to each.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
I apologise for intervening on the noble Lord, but we have a group coming later that is all to do with faith and religious worship. I think the comments that he is making might possibly be more appropriate when we come to the next group. Given the lateness of the hour, we might perhaps let the Opposition and the Minister wind up this particular debate, but focusing on PSHE rather than the broader issues of faith.
Lord McAvoy
Very briefly, in response to the Minister, I have not said much different from my noble friend Lady Massey, so it seems to me a strange distinction that she is making. But if it is the will of the Committee that I shut up and sit down, tell me. It is? That is fine.
Education Bill
Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts(12 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Hughes of Stretford
My Lords, I want to raise an issue on the back of this amendment and ask the Minister to reply to it. More than a few members of the Committee were very concerned to see a report in the Telegraph this morning that the Government have issued what they call in their press release the,
“final, clearer guidance for teachers”,
on how they should deal with bad behaviour. This final, clearer guidance includes and enumerates all the issues that we debated not so long ago, upon which a vote has not been taken, as we are in Grand Committee. Therefore, I contend that there is as yet no final resolution of this House, nor of the other House, on these matters. I feel that this is precipitous in the extreme of the Government and quite discourteous to the House. I fail to see how final guidance can be issued which refers to matters that we have yet to decide upon.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, it may help the Committee if I speak at this stage. According to the news, this guidance appears to be coming out at the same time that we were discussing these matters in Grand Committee. But this consultation ended in May, so the guidance has been published on the back of that. It relates to the current law, not the legislation before us at the moment. Again, the timing seems curious, but it is a consequence of it referring to another law rather than the Bill.
Let me speak briefly about what is in the guidance. We will ensure that Members of the Committee are issued with the guidance which has come out today to help frame our further discussions.
I am grateful to my noble friend for giving us the opportunity for this debate. We agree with much of his amendment. Of course a teacher should be able to comfort a small child who has fallen over or show them how to hold a violin bow or a tennis racket. The notion of no contact seems to me to go against our instincts as humans and, indeed, as teachers. There is nothing in law to prevent it. When pupils are on school premises, or off site but under the lawful charge of the school, teachers and school staff are acting in loco parentis. This means that they are, in the eyes of the common law, effectively stepping into the shoes of a parent unless there are statutory provisions which specify otherwise. No parent would think twice about sticking on a plaster or showing a child how to hold a rounders bat, and a teacher should feel equally able to do these things. I would strongly encourage any head teacher to make this clear to his or her staff.
Our guidance on this issue is also clear and it is made clearer in the papers in the consultation that has come out today. The guidance states:
“It is not illegal to touch a pupil. There are occasions when physical contact … with a pupil is proper and necessary.
Examples of where touching a pupil might be proper or necessary: holding the hand of the child at the front/back of the line when going to assembly or when walking together around the school; when comforting a distressed pupil; when a pupil is being congratulated or praised; to demonstrate how to use a musical instrument; to demonstrate exercises or techniques during PE lessons or sports coaching; and to give first aid”.
Of course this is not an exhaustive list but I think it demonstrates our clear expectations.
We agree that teachers who are subject to a complaint that they have used inappropriate physical contact should not routinely be suspended. This is why our new guidance on behaviour, and the associated guidance on dealing with allegations of abuse against teachers and other staff, makes clear that employers should not automatically suspend a member of staff who has been accused of misconduct pending an investigation.
We agree that teachers should and do need to have contact with pupils on a day-to-day basis. The law already allows for such contact. Our guidance reinforces this message and encourages schools to take a common-sense approach to physical contact between teachers and pupils. I hope that that has set out the background to this consultation and that, in that light, my noble friend will not feel the need to press this amendment.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
My Lords, from what I read of this guidance, it has a section on restraint of pupils who might be misbehaving. Last week I was in a useful meeting with the government adviser on behaviour, and he gave more than one example of having to restrain a child who needed to be physically touched to calm them down. The Minister has not mentioned issues of restraint, which could be quite dangerous for teachers and for pupils. Where does that fall in the guidance?
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, we will be sending round guidance on that. My noble friend’s amendment includes different forms of physical contact between pupils and staff. The Government’s adviser on behaviour, Charlie Taylor, who gave us such an impressive presentation last week, brought out occasions when physical restraint would be necessary. It will be in the guidance which will be sent round to all Members of the Committee as soon as possible.
Lord Elton
My noble friend mentioned guidance to staff. I want to put into her mind that it is necessary to talk to parents as well so that they realise how the children are going to be treated and will not take fright when the child comes back and says that he has been handled in a certain way.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, perhaps I ought to say a brief word about that as president of the National Governors’ Association. Almost anything that we are discussing has a reference and an importance for governors. We have specific clauses later on where we can look at this in rather more detail but it is another illustration of the somewhat difficult sorting-out of whose responsibility everything will be in future.
I entirely confirm the brilliance of teachers, and everything else. I admire very much the skills that they possess and the attempts of the Government to get them even more skilled and better equipped. Nevertheless the whole business of who is responsible for which bits of it, and indeed of proper respect for each part of the establishment, needs quite a lot of examination. I hope we are going to be giving a lot of time to it a bit later. I am particularly glad to see that there is a growing number of people who have been governors, because under the previous Government there did not seem to be quite as many around who were available and wished to talk about the role and responsibility of governors, or indeed the composition of the governing body.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I shall not respond to all the points made in this useful debate but I would draw out one particular aspect. The noble Baroness, Lady Morris, spoke about previous guidance which did not seem to make much difference. One thing that has come out of this consultation was that previous guidance was over 600 pages long; this is 50 pages long. Equally, the guidance on the use of force has decreased from 30 pages to seven. There is an argument that this, much more succinct guidance might be more effective. We can only hope so.
Lord Elton
My Lords, can the noble Baroness assure us that the long version will be withdrawn and that the short version will not be added to it?
Lord Lucas
My Lords, I am grateful to the Government. It is exactly the answer that I had hoped for and I look forward to it being applied in schools. I can think now of several that I shall be e-mailing when I get home to point out the URL of the new guidance. Perhaps I might say two things to the Minister. First, the brief advice given by my noble friend Lord Elton is absolutely crucial—parents should know what the school’s policy is. If my parents asked me what a week in school had been like, I can remember that I would say, “Well, I got slippered twice and my maths teacher hit me over the head with a slide rule and drew blood”, and that they would then ask, “Oh—what had you been doing wrong?”. In those days that was the policy. Parents will take what they have agreed to; it is if something happens by surprise that they get upset.
Secondly, when the Minister gets back to the department could she please give a long hug to whoever produced this guidance and say, “But you could have done even better if you had circulated this to the Committee when you published it”. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
My Lords, lest my noble friend think that she is on her own, I am with her.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I apologise for the lack of the e-mail going round the entire Committee. Perhaps I may indicate that it refers to a consultation that we began in May on a set of proposals designed to make it easier for schools to tackle performance issues. Those proposals have been on the website since May. Obviously we should have drawn noble Lords’ attention to the website, for those who have access to it, before the debate, but the e-mail will be circulated to Members of the Committee.
The evidence on the importance of teachers is clear. We entirely agree with my noble friend that the current arrangements for tackling poor teacher performance do not work as well as they might. They do not help teachers or the children in their care. The performance management arrangements and capability procedures were developed separately. They are complex, prescriptive and overlap, which we believe contributes to making some head teachers and governing bodies reluctant to take action, as we have heard from noble Lords today.
Our proposals have much in common with my noble friend’s amendment. They include: a duty on schools to give teachers a written appraisal of their performance against their objectives, which is a feature of the current regulations; a requirement that, as now, schools should identify teachers’ development needs and how they will be addressed; guidance that addresses the issue of support and monitoring for underperforming teachers—a school’s first response to underperformance should be to provide support to help teachers to improve, but where a teacher’s performance remains poor and does not improve after support has been provided, schools must take action quickly, effectively and fairly; and a model performance management policy incorporating capability procedures, where necessary, and an appeal stage, which is much simpler than the two policies it is designed to replace and is consistent with the ACAS Code of Practice—Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures.
Our approach has been to retain only the essentials, removing as much prescription as possible. In this approach we differ somewhat from my noble friend. We think that school leaders are currently too constrained by the arrangements and that they have too little freedom to exercise their professional judgment when tackling performance issues. I think that this summary shows how much our proposals are aligned with those of my noble friend Lord Lucas. We agree that teacher performance is vital and that schools need to take effective action to tackle underperformance where it occurs. However, I hope that my noble friend will agree that it would be more appropriate to address this issue by amending the current regulations and guidance than through primary legislation. I think that the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, was linked in with that.
The noble Lord asked two questions, the first of which was whether a teacher should be supported to find another post. That would be a matter for individual schools. Secondly, he asked whether reviews by pupils should be part of the system. There is nothing specific in the proposals to suggest that pupils should have a part. Once again, that would be up to schools to decide what evidence was appropriate when evaluating teacher performance. I hope that he and other noble Lords will look at the proposals on which we are currently consulting and give detailed comments on them. The consultation will continue until August. My noble friend the Minister, officials and I would be delighted to meet him and other noble Lords to talk over any suggestions or concerns. I hope in light of that, my noble friend will feel free to withdraw his amendment.
Baroness Howells of St Davids
I may have missed it, but can the Minister say whether the teacher who is being disciplined will be able to bring in a representative when meeting with the head?
Lord Lucas
I am grateful to my noble friend. I agree entirely with the noble Baroness, Lady Howells. This does not belong in legislation but this is the way in which we get a chance to talk about it. Secondary legislation and guidance can all flow past us without having a chance to stick a pin in it. I am delighted that my noble friend is thinking along the same lines as me. This is one of the difficulties in making schools good, which ought to be cleared out of the way. I am very cheered that something is being done about it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I apologise for intervening. We are hearing some tremendous speeches, but they are more Second Reading speeches than for the Committee stage of the Bill. Could I invite Members of the Committee to focus their remarks solely on the amendments that we are considering?
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, could I thank the noble Baroness for the kind words that she said about me and fashioning the national curriculum? I am usually criticised more than praised for it these days, but it fell to me and to many hundreds of others to fashion that curriculum 25 years ago. For the first time, we were putting on to the statute book a national curriculum. It was very broad and very balanced; that is what I was criticised for. It could not have been more broad or balanced. It had many things in it which have now been dropped: languages up to 16; art and music up to 16; history and geography up to 16. All of those have disappeared and gone, but it was certainly broad and balanced.
I have now come to the conclusion that if I was given the task of fashioning it today, a much more fundamental change really would be needed. I would actually stop it at 14. I am now quite convinced that the right age of transfer in our English education system is 14, not 11. I draw some strength from that because the Board of Education, meeting in 1941 to plan the pattern of education after the war, in the event of victory—it actually met before El Alamein—said to have selective grammar schools, selective technical colleges and secondary moderns and that the transfer age should be 13 and 14. The decision to change that never went to Ministers, as far as I can see from the records. It was decided by the Permanent Secretary of the day, who simply said, “You can’t have selection at 13 or 14 because grammar schools start at 11”.
It was a great opportunity missed. Why do I say that? First, I have great sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, was saying. During the fashioning of the national curriculum everybody wanted everything in it. Not only that, but he will remember the battles on the content of the national curriculum. I set up independent committees to advise me on maths as on maths there can be no controversy. Surely you can define a maths curriculum. Feudal armies marched across this battlefield. Some said, “You must teach children tables by heart”. Others argued, “No, that is appalling”. Some said, “You mustn’t let them use calculating machines”. Others asked, “Should you teach calculus before 16 or not?”. Blood was spilled on these battlefields. When I came to English, I thought I would outwit all these people by appointing the most reactionary and right-wing educationalists I could find, who wrote the black papers, who would deliver the sort of English curriculum I wanted. I was bitterly disappointed. They produced a curriculum, which said, “Don’t worry about spelling and don’t correct the grammar of little boys and girls who get it wrong at the primary level. Let them enjoy it”. I had to turn to an engineer in Bristol University to right the sense of that. When it came to the history curriculum, I knew perfectly well it was going to be a battlefield, so I appointed someone who owned a castle to write it. He was also a highly intelligent scholar who became the chairman of the British Library and produced a very good curriculum. Having done all of that, why do I now say it should really be at 14?
Baroness Walmsley
My Lords, I have my name to one of these amendments and should have it to the other one as well. I absolutely support what my noble friend has said. In relation to the first amendment in the group, if such a report were made by government, could the Minister look into the technology centres that are closing in a number of local authorities? They are centres of excellence and expertise and are of enormous value to schools that are trying to make the best use of technology not just for children who need assistive technology—that is a very important group—but for every child. Unfortunately, a lot of them are closing. That means that not only is the expertise going but the actual knowledge that helps schools to buy cost-effective equipment and have the technical support they need to ensure that the equipment works properly all the time. I would like to see that issue included in the report.
Amendment 107C concerns a subject which I am pleased to say my party will be discussing at our party conference in September. If the Government are set on reducing inequality and the achievement gap, making sure that every child from a deprived family has access to a computer and broadband is something that we should be prioritising. It is not a luxury. It is a tool for education and in this modern world it is an absolutely essential tool. It is very important for every child, not just, as my noble friend has said in his amendment, those from secondary age upwards, but going downwards as well. Knowing the sorts of deals that government can do with equipment suppliers and with the telecoms companies, I do not think that that would be anywhere near as expensive as it might at first seem given that you would be buying things in bulk. Not so long ago, there was talk of providing children with little laptops for £50. I reckon that you could probably get very basic ones for less than that now. Broadband should be able to be provided very cost effectively given the quantity that government would be interested in. This is an important measure. It is achievable and is absolutely in line with the coalition agreement and this Government’s stated aims in regard to education.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, I beg to move that the debate on Amendment 83ZA be adjourned.