Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

The Minister knows how much I welcome the amendment. I have not been part of the formal consultation but have managed to speak to him on a number of occasions informally and impressed on him the importance of local authorities and schools working together, simply because in doing so they learn each other’s minds. One area that has always improved is the safeguarding element between them because of working together. I thank the Minister for what he has done and, like the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I hope that he will maintain that co-operation in the legislation throughout our future debates.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, welcome the government amendment—or everybody’s amendment, really. It clearly is right and proper that schools and children’s services play their part within the broader community. In a recent survey of almost 1,000 governors, carried out by the National Governors Association and the TES, a significant majority of governors agreed that schools should play a key role in the provision of children’s services in the area. Indeed, that makes sense, and is surely what the Government were aiming to do—to get everybody involved in children’s education to work together for their benefit.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I, too, warmly welcome the government amendments not to repeal the duties in Clauses 30 and 31. The Minister probably had to do some convincing back at the ranch, so to speak. It would be rather surprising if he did not, but I am certainly glad that those provisions will remain on the statute book.

I have a few questions about the situation now. Despite the measures in the government amendments, there is some confusion about the Government’s commitment. I perhaps echo something of where the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, is coming from. Amendment 62 restores Section 10 of the Child Care Act 2000—the duty to co-operate to improve well-being. That Section 10 refers to “academy” as one of the schools on which the duty is imposed, but as we know, Clause 52 of the Bill creates three different types of academies: academy schools; 16 to 19 academies; and alternative provision academies. First, for the avoidance of doubt, is it the Minister’s understanding that the duty to co-operate will apply to those three types of new academies, as well as the generic term in the Child Care Act?

Secondly, there has been a revocation of regulations that were introduced some time ago to apply the duty to pupil referral units. The Government have already revoked that requirement. Can the Minister assure us that he will now overturn this revocation and bring pupil referral units back into the duty to co-operate, as was originally the case before the Government acted?

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 24th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton]

I shall speak to Amendments 58, 59, 60 and 61. I welcome the Minister’s letter of 20 October, which has given some helpful answers, but there are some further queries that I wish to raise in today’s debate.

With regard to Amendment 58, the letter from the Minister makes it clear that there will be robust standards and quality assurance—for that, we are pleased—through the Careers Profession Alliance and its proposed online register, which will also recognise those who have achieved a level 6 standard. This is very welcome, but I wish to ask the Minister for confirmation that statutory guidance will make it clear to schools that they must use this standard when commissioning.

Amendment 59 addresses the thorny issue of face-to-face advice, which we discussed at considerable length in Committee. In a perfect world, all schools would ensure that all pupils get at least one face-to-face interview, but the Minister’s letter makes it clear that that is not what the Government are looking for. Our amendment seeks to ensure that the most disadvantaged—the ones who were caught by the original inverted pyramid of the Connexions service proposals—would get face-to-face advice because it is extremely important that they do so. Let me explain why.

The Association of Colleges has recently surveyed pupils considering options for post-16, and while 64 per cent of young people considering their options know about A-levels, only a shocking 7 per cent can name apprenticeships as a qualification, just a quarter know about NVQs, and 19 per cent are able to name BTECs. Those pupils for whom A-levels are not the correct route will not know what they do not know. We have often talked about that in this House as a “Donald Rumsfeld moment”. On these Benches we remain very concerned that asking them to go on to a website and rootle around to find what might be appropriate for them is not going to be enough.

Schools will need to ensure that those most likely not to take A-levels or follow an academic route, some of whom may be at risk of becoming NEETs, should have access to face-to-face advice. Our amendment makes it clear that face-to-face advice must be offered to the disadvantaged. We have kept it as a fairly broad phrase, but for the avoidance of doubt we have included free school meals and those with SEN. But it is broadly inclusive so a school can look at its pupils and make its decision about where to draw those lines.

Amendments 60 and 61 cover the issue of when high-quality careers advice should start and end. I am grateful to the Minister for the discussions we have had outside the Chamber about whether a 14 year-old, as stated in the Bill, is actually a rising 14. Our amendment would make it clear that young people should be getting advice when they are beginning to consider their options for years 10 and 11 at school. If it starts later than that, after they have chosen their options, whether they want to follow an academic or a vocational route, they could compromise their future pathway. That seems wrong to us, so I ask the Minister to be clear that this is for rising 14s; that is, that those in year 9 who start the year as 13 year-olds and probably end it as 14 years-olds will be covered.

We also want to ensure that some provision is made for post-16 advice, principally again—I repeat the point—for those who may not be taking an automatic route into A-levels at school and then on to university. An enormous breadth of vocational training is available, along with an enormous number of qualifications. I know from my own experience that when, as the chair of a learning and skills council, we tried to map out the vocational pathways in our county area alone, it was almost impossible to do so. How on earth we expect 15 and 16 year-olds to make headway on their own is, I think, unhelpful.

Finally, I welcome the Minister’s affirmation in his letter of 20 October that local authorities that are currently letting their careers staff go are continuing to deliver their responsibilities as regards careers advice until schools take this over next year. In particular, I welcome his comment that if local authorities prove not to be doing that at the moment, the Department for Education will take them to task.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I rise to support these amendments, in particular those mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. The whole business of giving advice to children early is, frankly, crucial—and it is not just advice, but a rather wider range of intelligence about the world in which they are going to emerge. I recall my experience in the early days at the Equal Opportunities Commission when girls’ schools were not very good at giving the full range of possibilities, not least the range of likely earnings in particular careers. I think that some degree of inheritance remains that probably needs coping with. I would particularly want to target girls’ schools in this respect. I notice that they have not really been mentioned in any of the briefings.

The country’s need for skills at a particular time needs stressing. After all, those are the areas where you are likely to get jobs, although, frankly, it is not going to be easy in these economic conditions, whatever your age is. I have another worry about this whole area. Although I appreciate this business of wanting to give as much discretion as possible to local government in how it distributes its resources, it is important to see that some degree of uniformity is continued. Yet UNISON, having done its research, says that, of the 144 local authorities, only 15 are likely to maintain substantially what they are doing at the moment. There seem to be cutbacks everywhere. I, too, welcome the letter from the Minister of 20 October, in which he set out very clearly the Government’s aims, particularly for those with special needs, for whom there must be a very early introduction to the kind of possibilities that are available. Indeed, a great deal of encouragement still needs to be given to employers to provide the flexibility that is going to be required in many of the job and skills opportunities for the future.

I think that is enough from me, but I certainly think that we are going in the right direction in many of the amendments that have already been tabled and accepted by the Minister.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I, too, support the amendments put forward by my noble friend Lady Jones and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I think there is agreement across the House about the importance of the careers advice and guidance service. It has always been important, but never more so than now, when the world is very complicated. The more you give young people choice, the more you have an obligation to assist them in making effective choices. That is just the world in which we live.

A lot has been said about giving impartial information and advice. I agree entirely. I know that, certainly in the past, some schools and colleges who had a vested interest in keeping young people have not acted as professionally as they ought to have done in that matter. I am absolutely on board about that. However, we have spoken less about how young people make decisions. For me, that is one of the most important things. My experience tells me that giving young people accurate information does not mean that they will make a wise decision. I accept, in this age, and especially with young people and their ability to deal online with information, that we could indeed get a system where the facts of the case—accurate information about the options available to them— could be effectively delivered online. What you cannot do online is work with a young person to make the appropriate decision for them. That bringing together of their attributes, their aspirations, their strengths and their weaknesses and matching them to the information that you have is the essence of guidance and of counselling. I do not see that in either the legislation or the extra information that the Minister has offered.

If truth be told, I do not think that the careers guidance service has ever been as strong as it ought to be. I think it has always struggled to have its voice heard alongside the voice of quite powerful and strong heads over many years. It has always struggled to get in there with schools and hold its own. When I was a teacher, I remember very many caring teachers who did their best and acted professionally to work with young people and help them reach the right conclusion for themselves. To be truthful, when the careers guidance officers came into school and worked face-to-face with these young people, the quality of work that was done was seismically different from what was done with even the best teachers. Working with people, not just to give them information but to help them reach an effective decision, is a skilled job. I do not see how it can be done other than face-to-face, and I worry about it being done by someone without an appropriate qualification. For those reasons, I support the amendments.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Before the noble Lord sits down, will he address the point I made that careers advice for girls should be as wide-ranging as possible?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I hope that the noble Baroness will forgive me for not responding to that point. We clearly want to see high-quality careers guidance for girls as well as for boys. We expect schools to want to do that. The noble Baroness’s particular concern may be to make sure that some of the career options that schools have not traditionally thought of as being suitable for girls get full consideration. I agree with her that one would very much want to see that.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lady Walmsley has just said. I hesitate to disagree with the emphasis that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, brought to bear in moving his amendment only because I, like I am sure every noble Lord in this House, recognise the great contribution he has made over many years to the welfare of children and to the cause of good parenting. I certainly do not wish to dissociate myself from the objective he has set.

However, where I differ from him is in suggesting that bringing matters in the form of statute and putting them in the Bill is the right way to proceed. I agree with my noble friend Lady Walmsley that good parenting can be taught and that the practice is urgently in need of wider observation. I cannot accept that by putting these words into the Bill we will in some way be striking a blow at unwanted pregnancies. There are other ways of dealing with that. Several thoughts are brought to mind in this particular amendment. They include the damaging impact of the constant replication on television of various human relationship activities, which I do not think accord to the highest standards of individual conduct. If we were able—and as a former Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, I have to accept that we are not—to bring a greater degree of responsibility to bear on those who regulate our television programmes for the content of what is relayed into homes, where it is often watched by those with vulnerable minds, we would probably do a very great service to our children.

There is, in my view, a strong feeling that on the whole parents fail to understand the need to communicate with the child, even when the child is very young—although I recognise that that is an awful generalisation. I have made my next point in this place before. How often does one see parents pushing their children in pushchairs with the child facing away from the parent? If the child faced the other way, the parent would have direct contact with them, be able to talk to them, communicate with them and have eye contact with them. The benefit would be enormous not just to the parent, but, more importantly, to the child. These are not tricks of the trade but important underlying principles that need to be adopted by parents. They do not need to be written into the statute but they need to be understood by parents. We need to educate parents in this regard. That starts in the school where children receive all kinds of messages relevant to parenting.

Like all of us, it is the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to control the number of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore we might address the whole subject of sex education in schools in this group of amendments. That may well come up later. However, the content of that material, and the fact that it is projected to our children in schools from the age of five, is appalling. That matter needs to be tackled sensibly. The real key to good parenting and preparing a child for school is for the parent’s attention to be focused constantly on the child. Parents need to look after their children, not relegate them to sitting in front of the television, thereby avoiding their responsibility and the daily need to attend to their children’s requirements. We need to ensure that this happens by some means or another. I do not quite know how it can be done, but perhaps through talking about it a great deal, through educational provision, through our churches and through every other means of communication, we can ensure that parents really understand the responsibilities involved in having a child, and that that responsibility starts from the very earliest moment of the child’s life when they need to communicate directly with them and draw them into the heart of a loving family. That is the way to prepare children for education and school life.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments of my noble friend Lord Northbourne, which he seeks to insert at a rather appropriate place in the Bill just under the heading “Early Years Provision”. The amendments describe measures that the noble Lord thinks would be effective. I was not clear how the measures would stop unwanted children being born. Nevertheless, focusing rather more attention on things such as flexible working for both parents might allow a greater sharing of responsibilities. I am glad to say that that is the pattern today, whereby the country is using the talents of both sexes in producing well-balanced children for the future and making certain that we make the most of our intellectual and productive abilities when competing in an increasingly global world.

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[Lord Elton]

My Lords, since we are on the subject of context in these amendments, I rise very briefly to say how exceedingly complicated that context is and how it needs to be kept in mind. If there was perfect discipline in every school, none of this legislation would be necessary. Why has it been lost? Has human nature changed? No, it has not. Has the perception of Governments and lawyers changed as to what is acceptable behaviour? Yes, it has.

The noble Lord, Lord Baker, is no longer in his seat, but back in 1988 he had a problem and asked me to write a report on discipline in schools. Actually, I commend it to the Government again; it remained on shelves for many years. Basically, you have to start discipline preferably before a child comes into school and when it comes into school. It is not beating them, it is managing their behaviour. I suggest that what the Government need urgently to do, if things have not changed since the days when I was better in touch with these things, is to see what teachers are taught in colleges of education about how to do that.

When I began that inquiry, I was told by every teacher training college in the country that of course they taught classroom management. We then did a survey of those they had actually through their hands in the past 15 years and found that only one of them did. All the others said they did it as a cross-curricular subject. I discovered this ahead of the report because I was a teacher myself and I finished up teaching in a college of education. I lost the attention of my adult class, quite unexpectedly, halfway through a term and I asked them, “What are you thinking about?”. They said, “We are thinking about our first teaching practice next week”. I said, “You needn’t bother, you know far more than any of the children will and all you have to do is see they behave properly”. “How do we do that?”, they said. I said, “The Department of Education will have told you—hasn’t it?”, and nobody said a word. So we abandoned the French Revolution and moved into classroom management.

I am becoming garrulous. I merely want to say that these measures are necessary because, broadly speaking, in an enormous number of schools teachers have really lost control of how the children behave in the classroom. They began to do that in the 1960s with child-centred education. We are drawing back from that now but the senior ranks in many of our schools are actually the products of that who have now reached the top of the teaching tree, and remedial action is necessary. Therefore, I think that we are right to be discussing these issues and I am very interested to hear what my noble friend will say about how we are going to put discipline back into the classroom.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, this has been an extremely interesting debate about a very serious subject, which has encouraged a lot of your Lordships to look back at better times when it would seem that it was somewhat easier to make the right decision. We have to face the fact that things have moved on. I particularly support the amendment tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, because it seems that what was being said about the guidance, and indeed what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said, is probably fairly accurate in that it needs tidying up. My reading of the guidance was that teachers had the right to refuse to take part in searches, so there is at least that aspect in which a teacher can exercise their own feelings and responsibility about these things.

The points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, were worrying. It may well be that the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, is right, that if every school could agree a principle—and maybe that should be written into the Bill—that no telephones are to be brought in, or that they must be left at the gate and picked up on the way out, that might be an answer. I suspect that it would not be as simple as it might sound. Alas, we have got to look practically at what we do now. I do not envy the Minister and his team, because to get it right for this current moment is a very important but difficult job.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I was not going to speak in this debate, but so many important comments have been made that I feel that I want to add my few words.

I very much agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this is about safeguarding both the child and the teaching staff. I also agree with the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, that we need to engender trust in a school. The noble Lord, Lord Elton, reminded me about his report on discipline, which I remember quite well. I remember having to write an essay on it—so he is to blame.

The problems of discipline in schools are not just to do with pupils. They are to do with that group of people we were talking about in a very positive way: parents, and—dare I say it?—the legal profession. You can just imagine a situation that happens daily: that of a teacher, say in primary school, who in innocence says “Come on, hand over that game you’ve got in your pocket”, stupidly goes to reach for it, and the next thing is that there is a legal action. So all that trust has evaporated.

The guidance has to be very clearly laid down. Pupils should not have mobile phones in classrooms—and this is hugely important. It is very dangerous, for all the reasons that we have heard. Of everything that has been said, that is probably the most important, because it is not just about grooming children, but about other pupils bullying each other through mobile phones.

So why on earth schools are allowing children to have mobile phones in schools, I do not understand. In small schools, they can be handed into the school office or, as has been suggested, go in a locker. I hope the guidance is very clear. It is about ensuring the protection and the safeguarding of the pupil, as much as the safeguarding of the teacher.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Walmsley]

I have Amendment 143 in this group. First, I thank the Minister for his letter to me dated 5 September about this matter. I suspect that it may well have been copied to most Members of the Committee. He explained the Government’s rationale for moving YPLA, Partnerships for Schools and the Department of Education’s distributing role of funding local authorities for primary and secondary schools and bringing them together in the education funding agency, which will be responsible to Ministers, and Ministers will be accountable for its operation. It would make sense if it becomes more efficient than the current system, but it is particularly important that we do not lose the progress that has been made over the short life of the YPLA. It is a great compliment to the YPLA that the Association of Colleges has written to me and has asked the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and me to lay this amendment. It feels that, in its short life, the YPLA has communicated very effectively with the providers of post-16 education and has made sure that the voices of college leaders, principals and so on have been heard on its board, as well as the voice of schools.

The Association of Colleges feels that the chief executive and the chair of the YPLA have very quickly opened and maintained a very effective dialogue. My noble friends on these Benches and I can vouch for that because it has also had a dialogue with us. I am sure that other political groups have had the same dialogue. It is important that the proposed changes do not threaten that progress or stifle the open communication of views of the sector with those who are providing and distributing the funding.

There is a little fear out there that the new education funding agency, working within government, will become disconnected from the post-16 education sector. We hope that giving the Secretary of State the power to set up an advisory board with the structure as laid out in the amendment would prevent that happening. I am very pleased to tell those Members of the Committee who have not seen the letter from the Minister that its last paragraph states:

“I can see that there is a case for establishing an expert group, drawn from its customer base, to advise the new Agency on its operation. I have asked the chairs of the YPLA and Partnerships for Schools for their advice on this matter; that is due very shortly and I expect to be in a position to confirm our intentions later in the autumn”.

I am most grateful to the Minister for that and I wonder whether in his response he will elaborate on whether he feels that this advice will lead to the establishment of such an advisory board and whether he feels that it needs to be in legislation or should just be at the discretion of the Secretary of State. On the whole, those of us who want to ensure that that communication continues and that that expert advice is always available would like to see it in legislation.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, first, I give the apologies of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, who sadly cannot be with us at this moment. I thank the Minister for the letter that he wrote to the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and me about the abolition of the Young Person’s Learning Agency for England because both of us were very concerned about teaching within prisons and the importance of teaching taking priority among those young people who we know have much more ability than has ever come to the fore and very much needs developing.

I shall slightly push the Minister on an issue about which I feel quite strongly. When the education side of things was still within the power of the governor, if he happened not to be keen on education, he could dismiss all this and keep the young prisoner doing other activities and not concentrating on education. I would like to be reassured that in any set-up, including in the new education funding agency, which we have been told will have the advantage of having many YPLA members as part of it, there will be a real effort to ensure that proper attention is paid to young prisoners and that they are given the back-up to help their rehabilitation when they come out of prison. All this is part of a crucial way of seeing that reoffending does not continue in the cycle that we have seen for so many years. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on those points.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am very much in favour of this group of amendments. In particular, I remember the noble Lord, Lord Layard, talking about this on Second Reading. As has been said by others, he has phrased his amendment carefully because of changes that have been made and because, as we know, the situation is not quite the same as when the idea was being thought through. I am also very much in favour of a wider range of options, and agree with what the noble Lord, Lord Addington, said about people whose abilities are locked in, perhaps because of dyslexia. This is another area where we see young offenders who have not gone through the process of gaining from their education. There ought to be a much more flexible approach. I hope that when the Government look at this and do their best to incorporate the approach into their plans for the future, they will work out a series of apprenticeships.

Let us try to think about incentives for employers who might be able to help—a very good idea from the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp. Young people might be able to do an apprenticeship over a slightly longer period of time while using their academic abilities, so that they do not just have to have God knows how many O-levels in order to qualify. There ought to be a range of ways in which these wretched young people, who could so easily go down the wrong routes, are encouraged to develop in the ways we heard about. The lovely BBC scheme for young people seems to be exactly what everybody should be thinking about.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I sympathise very much with the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Low, but I also sympathise with the tensions expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. There are difficulties here. This is pretty much a sledgehammer amendment and I am not sure that I would want to go that far. However, I invite the Minister to say that he will take away the spirit of the amendment, as well as the comments, and look at how we can best improve the quality of SEN teaching. It is a very tall order to ask any school to be outstanding in all areas that might have to be dealt with under the general heading of SEN, and we might find a more subtle way of inviting them to apply for an outstanding rating in areas where they show expertise.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, what the noble Lord has just said may well be the right approach. However, in the mean time, the important question was that asked by the noble Lord, Lord Elton, regarding number, where there has certainly been an increase. Obviously, as these matters are spread—as they should be, in my view—throughout the education system generally, it is very important that we know that adequate teachers and teaching assistants are trained to see that these children receive the very best education.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, I start by saying that I agree very much with the noble Lord, Lord, Low, about how important it is to make sure that teachers have the skills that they need to teach all pupils in the classroom, including, of course, those with special educational needs, and that it is not something that will be swept under the carpet—a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch.

In our SEN and disability Green Paper, which we published earlier this year, we set out a broad approach to achieving higher standards in the teaching of special educational needs and disability. Those measures included making the highly successful Achievement for All approach available to all schools; strengthening the coverage of SEN and disability in initial teacher training—in particular, by giving more trainees the opportunity to undertake extended placements in special provision in mainstream and special schools; continuing to fund the training of new SENCOs; establishing scholarship schemes to give experienced teachers and support staff the chance to undertake continuing professional development in SEN; developing advanced training modules in the most prevalent types of SEN, which will support teachers in developing their own knowledge and skills and in supporting other teachers; developing specialist modules in severe learning difficulties, and profound and multiple learning difficulties; and supporting specialist SEN training across clusters of schools. Those are some of the more general measures that we are taking, which I hope will reassure noble Lords. This is an area that we continue to take seriously. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that this is not something that one wants to see as an add-on; one wants to see it as integral to training.

Alongside those measures, teaching schools will, we hope, play an important role. We announced the first 100 teaching schools this July. The designation criteria did not include a specific requirement in relation to SEN, but they are intended to ensure that each teaching school has the capacity to improve teaching schools in SEN and disability in its area. I will write to the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, with the information we have on the teaching schools rated as outstanding. In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, the new inspection framework we are developing with Ofsted will embed the connection between the achievement of different groups of pupils and the school's overall Ofsted judgment. Under that framework, for a school to be outstanding it will need to demonstrate that it is doing well for pupils with special educational needs and other vulnerable groups.

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[Baroness Brinton]

I am grateful for the intervention of my noble friend Lord Elton. The key point that I was trying to make earlier is that inspections under CSCI were clearly about welfare, as opposed those of the old-style Ofsted—if I can call it that—which were clearly about education. They require different professionals with different attitudes. It might be possible in some circumstances to run the inspections side by side, as has happened in local government, where there has been a plethora of inspections. However, the inspections are not the same, because they look at different things with different people. I should be grateful if the Minister would write to me on that point as well. I shall not continue my opposition to Clause 42 standing part at this stage, but will look forward to the Minister’s responses before Report.

[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.

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[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, Whitehall is a long way from Walsall, and the Secretary of State for Education, who sits on one of the peaks in Whitehall, is even further from the parent in the small primary school in Walsall. I think that it is a step too far to assume that the route for dealing with problems of this kind must inevitably flow through the Secretary of State’s office. I support the amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I very much support the amendment of my noble friend Lord Low. Indeed, it is strongly reinforced by other experts in the field. It is clearly unacceptable for there not to be any method of redress for parents of children who are not having their needs met. Children taken into care have been given a lot of attention and it very much looks as though they will be a high priority for school placements and so on. That is right and proper because they are firmly the responsibility of the state. However, that does not mean that there should not be an equal method of appeal for those who fall into a lesser category of concern.

I am very impressed by the Local Government Ombudsman, as the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has clearly been. I am certainly not going to complain because it is part of a government department, but it is equally important that it has local knowledge and can understand local situations.

Therefore, I hope that we shall hear that the Minister has a very definite concern about what he has heard and that he will be taking away the whole matter and coming back with something more positive on Report.

[Lord Elton]

Because my noble friend Lord Lucas is praying in aid, I think I should say that I found his speech persuasive. I was expecting the Minister to remind us that in effect the Secretary of State is no such person and that, when a complaint is made to him, someone quite different, more junior and perhaps more approachable manifests himself or herself. However, if that is not how the system works and if the only way to get a personal, sympathetic hearing is through the local ombudsman, I am very interested in hearing it.

For years I have been concerned about bullying in schools and about the extent to which the psychology of it is not understood. I know of children who do not feel that they can report that they are being bullied for a variety of reasons, one of which is that they think they should not be in that position. They think that they will be letting their parents down and they do not tell them about it at all. So when they go to the parent and the parent cannot get an answer, and the great strong arm of mother or father is unable to protect the child, a further blow is given to that child’s confidence and its very home base is under threat. I was somewhat moved by the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Low, and was greatly concerned by what my noble friend said. I hope that the Minister will be able to give substantial reassurance on this issue before we get to Report.

Schools: Funding Reform

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the point of carrying out the condition survey is precisely to arrive at the point, to which my noble friend referred, where one can make a fair comparison between schools across the country to work out which of them have the greatest need and are most in need of having their condition improved. He is obviously right about that.

So far as the cost of the building projects is concerned, my noble friend makes a good point. One of the things that we will be looking at is how to try to secure the best possible value in a number of different ways, perhaps by grouping schools.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords—

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is a very distinguished Member of this House, but I think Labour Back-Benchers are the only group who have not had a turn so far. We have a certain amount of time.

On design, did not the Victorians produce some extremely distinguished school buildings that have stood the test of time on the basis of just three or four rather standardised models? I hope the Minister will look at that example and perhaps be inspired by it.

On revenue funding, at first sight, one sees that it appears very just and sensible to cut back proportionately revenue funding to LEAs where a portion of that funding is earmarked for services that are now being paid for directly by funding academies. However, is it not the case that there are very considerable economies of scale in education, including in the operation of LEAs, and that the administrative and other fixed costs of those LEAs in providing those services will now, under this new system, fall on a reduced volume of funding for the LEA schools and therefore be a higher proportion of that funding? Therefore, schools that remain within the LEA system, will lose out, simply because there are academies in that area, and they will lose out more, the more academies there are in that area. Surely that is not fair either.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the noble Lord about Victorian schools. I am not an expert, but I think one of the reasons why, when one goes around London, they all look quite similar is because they were procured by a board. He is absolutely right about the question of how one goes about doing that. That demonstrates that it is possible to have something that looks recognisable but is also good quality and stands the test of time. My observation, as someone who gets sent around academies quite a lot, is that they all had fantastic architects and a lot of expense, and they all pride themselves on how original they are, but they all look quite similar if you look around the country. Going back to our earlier debate, I think the point about how design is accepted at a time is well made.

I understand the noble Lord’s point about economies of scale and academies. It is obviously the case, and it is indeed happening, that many academies are choosing to carry on buying services from the local authority if they think they are good quality local services and that they are delivering what they want. It is also the case that some local authorities are embracing, if that is the right word, a different role and are thinking that they want to be in the business of becoming commissioners and selling their services to a range of schools across broader areas. A number of different approaches are developing. I accept the underlying point he makes, but there is a varied response going on across the country.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I want to add to the design debate. First, I entirely agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, has said. Energy efficiency is also very important, but please let us have a design architectural competition to choose some of the best experts in that area. Secondly, the repairing of the older schools is terribly important because, again, pride in your school requires you and enables you to keep it in good order. The less well cared for a school is, the more likely it is to get kicked about and made even worse. Thirdly, and anticipating a debate we might have tomorrow but which sadly I can no longer take part in as I shall not be there, the involvement of the children themselves in the design of these schools and what is required there is crucially important. I have seen it in action with some young children advising student architects on what they should incorporate into a design. I hope that the Minister will bear that in mind when he is thinking of student governors.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I think that the noble Lord is misinterpreting the rules of Committee. The Minister speaking does not curtail debate in any way; it merely gives us a bit of information on which we can base our further debate.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, we need not just information, but a little guidance as this Committee stage could go on and on. I think that we all accept that.

The problem with my noble friend’s comment just now is that, alas, as we heard earlier, one or two people have personal experiences of finding the whole business of sitting outside an assembly or religious occurrence in a school very disturbing. This is something that we all need to take into account. This issue has gone on and on. I was remembering, as the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was on his feet, having these arguments in the Communications Committee. However, we managed eventually to come to a satisfactory conclusion and we moved on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief intervention because, obviously, one supports a great deal of what has been said, particularly on fairness and ensuring that the least well provided for children are given not only a fair, but a more than fair, chance. I thought that one of the bases on which academy status was to be granted was a clear understanding that academies would take a proportion of these children. If that is the case, how will that be ensured?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I start by responding to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and recognising her commitment to fair access and the points made by a number of noble Lords. I hope we can accept that there is common ground between us and that there is nothing more important than working to make sure that all children and young people have a fair opportunity for excellent education and training. Part of the answer, as the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said, lies in increasing the provision of good places. We are not there yet, but that is one of the underlying principles of what the Government are trying to do in their reforms—trying to give schools more autonomy and encouraging more diverse provision. That is, in a way, the other side of the coin to extending autonomous schools, about which noble Lords have concerns. We can address those concerns, but it is the drive towards greater autonomy and variety that will, over the longer term, provide a greater number of better places and deal with the underlying problem with admissions, which is that there are not enough good places.

I shall pick up on the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, and put the scale of the problem into context. In February, the schools adjudicator gave evidence to the Education Select Committee in another place. He said that,

“the vast majority of admissions authorities … if they are breaching the rules, don’t mean to be doing so”.

In 2009-10, there were 151 decisions, in the context of around 5,500 admissions authorities, in more than half of which the complaint was not upheld. I say that just to provide a little context.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I am also one of those who think it pretty important that the curriculum is seen to be independent of Government. I am thinking about the future of what is planned. It is said that the QCDA may well not have been the most successful of bodies, but it did a pretty adequate job nevertheless. We do not have any clear idea where it is going, but one is told and one hopes that some of the bodies will be transferred to other organisations. If the advisory body that will be giving advice to the Government as and when required—this is important—it should be much more available on an independent basis to the emerging range of academies. There will be a need for good independent advice. I am inclined to support all these amendments, but will bear in mind what the Minister says in his reply about plans that will be seen to be more satisfactory to the Committee.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I am happy to reassure my noble friend Lord Peston that philosophy occasionally plays a part in schools. I could take him to a couple of primary schools not six miles from here where it is argued by the head teachers that it improves behaviour in the playground. However, that is a separate matter.

On the amendments before us, it is important that we get this matter right one way or the other. I do not accept the connection to 1935, and nor does my noble colleague who proposed the amendment, but if you look at the argument and the tussle going on in Scotland at the moment over the history curriculum then you will pause and have thoughts about where decisions are finally made and on what basis. There is an issue here.

Two things are clear. First, in the end the Secretary of State has the responsibility to make the decision. That is the current decision and I rest content with that. Secondly, though, the Secretary of State, however clever, will need advice. That advice is of great interest to Members here and elsewhere. I would not propose going backwards and effectively reconstituting the QCDA. We have been there and done that, and there were problems; let us think new thoughts. My own inclination as a time-served academic is that when the Secretary of State publishes changes to the curriculum, he or she publishes, as a good academic would, a series of footnotes and references to the advice sought, who gave it, to whom it was given, what the advice was and whether it was well evidenced. That would give me much greater confidence than setting up a board.

There is no final expert opinion on what should be in a curriculum. The risk for the QCDA and any successor would be an assumption that there was a right answer. There is not; there are nuances and leanings in different directions. In the end, that should be a matter for the Secretary of State to take a view on, but we need to know what the advice was so that we can protest if necessary.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The point on the funding agreement is the one that I mentioned to my noble friend Lord Willis, which is that the agreement specifies that academies will provide a broad and balanced curriculum that includes English, maths and science. I will need to follow up on the point about creationism and write to the noble Baroness explaining what the mechanism is to prevent that happening. It is prevented and I will make that clear in a letter.

On that point, I would now ask the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, to withdraw the amendment.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Could we all have a copy of the letter explaining how creationism is prevented being taught?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the Minister for his response and all noble Lords for their contributions to this important issue. The point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Willis, is extremely important and reflects one of the constant challenges in the Bill. We are debating proposals for change, many of which will not apply if the brave new world in which every school is an academy comes into being. It is an issue that I want to raise later in relation to admissions. In response to the Minister’s offer to provide a letter specifically in relation to creationism, perhaps it could be sent to all noble Lords so as to address the broader question raised by my noble friend Lady Morris of Yardley. Precisely what control does the Secretary of State or anyone else have over other potentially unwanted developments in the curriculum at an academy? It might be some other obscure and unusual development, so it would be good to know what controls are in place.

The Minister acknowledged the point that decision and accountability rests with the Secretary of State, and I perfectly accept that. The point at issue here is the process that leads up to that. The Minister has said that the Secretary of State, not the QCDA or some replacement for it—none of us is defending any particular body; we are talking about the process in principle—would have responsibility not only for the final decision but for the process of consultation. While the Minister has given some assurances that the Secretary of State will consult with the three groups that the QCDA now has to consult—the local authorities, governing bodies and teachers—beyond that, the parameters of the review will be determined by the Secretary of State and not by an independent body. Therefore, any academics which the Secretary of State chooses to include in the process of review beyond those three groups can simply be those academics which support the view that the Secretary of State starts off with. While it may be of some assurance that the written submissions may be published at the end of the process, it will be too late for someone with alternative views to be consulted.

Officials sent round a note on how the new process would work. I do not know if every Member received it, but my noble friend and I did. It states that beyond those three groups which have to be consulted on a statutory basis, the Secretary of State will,

“need to give notice of the proposal to any other persons with whom he thinks it would be desirable to consult”.

The difference that we can all recognise is that at the moment the range of additional people is decided by an independent body, not the Secretary of State who has to make the final decision. That is a crucial difference.

There is another crucial difference at the end of that process. Whereas the QCDA at present must arrange for a full report to be published, the advice that we are given by officials is that,

“After the consultation has ended, the Secretary of State will consider the responses and publish a summary of the views expressed and a draft of the regulations”

that he wants to bring forward. In other words, it is again in the gift of the Secretary of State to decide what to publish and what to reveal about what was said during the consultation process. That is not an acceptable process in this day and age, and there needs to be some division in terms of the independence of the consultation, the analysis, the recommendations and the final decision of the Secretary of State. We may return to this matter on Report but, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Peston]

In supporting my noble friend, I start by placing this whole problem in a proper context. A five year-old going for the first time to school this autumn has a life expectancy of 85 or maybe 95 years. The thought that you can really tell them about the world in which they will pursue their working lives is rather difficult. In my younger days as an economist in the economics of education, I wrote a number of papers about relating education and what should be in education to the needs of the economy. I did not realise that they were rubbish at the time that I published them but it was obvious that they were rubbish not many years afterwards. Those days have somewhat gone, although they did not hold me back in my career.

The central point about what careers advice will have to focus on is this long period—most of which, from the point of view of the economy, is difficult or even impossible to forecast. The advice given must really concentrate on that aspect of the matter. That means that it must overwhelmingly be professional.

If I may move into anecdote mode, after I had left the LSE as a lecturer to become a professor, one of my old friends who was still a lecturer said to me, “One of the students has just been to see me. He is thinking of dropping out of his degree because he has a pop group. What advice would you have given him?”. I said, “Get your degree first and then possibly think about the pop group”. He said, “I gave him the same advice and he more or less told me to drop dead”. The student's name was Mick Jagger. That is a very good example of why giving casual, off-the-cuff careers advice to people is not the path to go down. That does not mean that the professionals can get it exactly right, but I am certain that my noble friend is right to emphasise that careers advice requires a very subtle expertise, because it is not easy to get over to people how complicated their whole lives and choice of careers will be.

Another aspect of this has always troubled me. Our young people are marvellous and lots of them are incredibly talented— particularly in the arts. We produce marvellous young actors, musicians, and so on. Our problem is that the demand for such people is—and, I guess, always will be—less than the available supply. One reason why we require not merely experts in our careers service but people with a human touch is that they must explain to people, “If you insist on going down that path—and I do not want to stop you—I ought to tell you that you will be competing against other people with enormous talent. Are you sure that that is the risky option that you want to take”. That only reinforces my noble friend's view that we cannot let amateurs take over the service. Among amateurs, we must include teachers. That includes university teachers, although we are not talking about them at the moment. Essentially, my noble friend is pressing the Minister on the point that we need a commitment to a fully professional careers advice service covering a great range of areas. We must find funds to support that service; we cannot leave it to the school itself.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I am certainly in sympathy with everything that has been said on this subject. It takes me back quite a long way to the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts, in which education was one of the areas covered. We spent quite a lot of time encouraging teachers in girls’ schools to take a more proactive role in opening up ideas of different careers for the girls than was the tradition. I am sad to say that there is still quite a gap there. On the comment made about teachers not being adequate to do that job, it would not be a bad idea as part of their training if, periodically, they had to take a job for a while in the real world to see what are the practices here and now.

In engineering, all these years later, there is a dearth of girls prepared to take on that career. It depends to some extent on the people they see out there in the real world. If not many have made it to the top of their career, are running things and are looked up to by the rest of the engineering world, they are not as likely to go down that route. I hope that we will address that aspect.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Low will soon speak to his amendment. On the responsibility for special educational needs, I entirely agree with him that there is an enormous need to start that process early—incidentally, that is true for practically all girls. It is interesting to note that the Equality and Human Rights Commission makes the point by stating that a quarter of children in primary school want to go on to higher education. Among girls, more than 80 per cent have that aspiration. If they have it already, at least it should be kept going by giving them examples of the many areas where their skills would be needed. There is clearly a role for governors here. They have a role to play in this already, so this is not providing a new one because it is all part of what needs to be made available to pupils. I am certain that parents in the local area would take that view.

One other area I want to stress is that of the role of the universities themselves. Many of them already send their students, voluntarily of course, particularly into schools where the aspiration among pupils to go on to higher education is not high. I am sure that the Government will be pleased to know that that sort of advice does not cost very much, but it is very good practice for the students themselves and helpful to the aspirations of the pupils.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

I support most of the amendments in the group and I want to focus in particular on careers advice, on which many other noble Lords have already led. I agree totally with everyone who has spoken that unless careers advice is independent, it is very worrying. I hope that the Minister will consider whether Ofsted should include as part of its assessment of the effectiveness of a school how well it provides careers advice. It would not be an unusual process for Ofsted to get involved in. Although I agree with my noble friend Lord Peston that at the age of five you do not know what you are going to do, in this day and age people start taking an interest at a much younger age.

An area of concern has been raised by a number of employers who I have been talking to, along with a number of colleges. Recently I visited Newcastle College and North Lindsey College in Scunthorpe for Training 2000. What those colleges said was music to my ears. Although some careers advice is okay, a lot is obviously inadequate. But the principal at Newcastle College said that when she was a young girl—it was probably a while ago—no one had ever talked to her at school what it would mean if she went down a certain career path: how much would she earn and what would be her prospects going forward? Perhaps we have stayed away from those questions as well. For me, she made a telling point because, whether we like it or not, they are keen to know if they will have money to spend.

Through Semta I have been working with a careers adviser at BAE Systems, which has a programme in place in which representatives talk to young people about what it means to be an engineer and explain that it is not the dirty job that everyone thinks it is. There is a slide presentation to describe the earning potential at each stage of someone’s career progression. Some people might flinch at that, but in the real world of 2011-12, it is absolutely where young people are. It is the kind of information that is not always readily available. You can follow a pathway through looking at sector skills councils, but what is not often linked to it is the thought that, “If I work really hard and progress from this level to that level, what will that mean for me going forward in the sense of my future career?”.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I entirely agree what with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, just said. I would have said it myself if I could have said it as well. It is crucial that children learn these things at school. It is daffy to prescribe that individual items should be learnt. One should look at the outcome. The only sensible way of looking at the outcome is inspection. This Bill is setting out to destroy that aspect of inspection rather than building on it, so I am entirely with the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, in my concerns. The only other thing I would like to say is that this is a great subject to be debating in this room, under a picture of a PSHE lesson.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

This whole business of PSHE is almost written on one’s brain because the argument for it has come up again and again in all the education Bills. Relationships are so crucial in everything that we do. I am very much of the view that it certainly does not need to be prescribed and in the Bill. I go along with the approach of my noble friend Lord Sutherland on this. Nevertheless, the whole area is crucially important.

I wish the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, was here because when the previous Government introduced citizenship lessons, there was at last great hope that children would be introduced to the business of parenting—not just getting on and understanding their difficult relationships with their parents but actually what a child needs: love, support and caring. That never happened; it got shunted around to different lessons, if it ever took place at all. I would not at all mind having an inspection with that written into it: how is it doing and is it increasing the happiness and the general well-being of our children?

Returning briefly to the business of teaching religion, and what was said just now, it is crucial for all of us to know about the different religions in the world—and none. It is essential that we accept and know and are tolerant about this. One of the horrors in the rest of the world is that that form of tolerance does not exist. So we must do whatever we can in that direction. However, I hope that in the process we are not going to end up with ways that actually restrict the excellent work that many of our religious schools are doing. I am not thinking of these amendments but perhaps some that will come subsequently.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, in response to the query raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, about inspections, as I understand it, Ofsted will continue to conduct inspections in academies and other schools as part of national surveys of particular aspects of education. I rise simply to say to our two Ministers that surely the issue of PSHE would be top of the list of priorities for Ofsted in terms of a national survey of what is actually happening. Its report would tell us what is really going on in our schools across the country.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

I wish to refer to a body of people who have not been mentioned in the debate thus far but are mentioned in the amendment. Since the thrust of the Bill as a whole seems to be pushing towards more free-standing governance of schools, we should consider what ought to be the remit of schools’ governing bodies in respect of this matter. We can all agree that we must pay tribute to teachers’ excellence and recognise the natural affinities that lead to physical contact at different times, which have been mentioned. However, if the governing body is to pick up tangible responsibility for interpreting and applying conduct in this area, not only must teachers be supported by senior members of staff and head teachers but the relationship with the governing body has to be addressed.

This can be a touchy business—sorry, that was not meant to be a pun—if there has been a recent incident in the locality and emotions can be highly charged. I have sat on governing bodies which have dealt not just with the case before us but with all the accumulated stuff that arises from a consideration, and often press reportage, of things that may have happened outside the remit of the school but in the locality. The systems devised in this Bill and in the previous Bill do not give enough attention to governing bodies. If we are to have more free-standing schools and academies, we must be sure that governance by the governing body is given adequate consideration.

I have been a governor for 30 years and am a chairman of trustees and know that even gathering the relevant skills round a table is difficult in the inner cities. Giving governors the remit and guidance on how to apply various aspects of their functions is difficult and will also be difficult in this area. To state on the face of the Bill that the governing body,

“may adapt and promulgate rules on physical contact”,

may be enough but governing bodies have to be equipped to apply that statement adequately and responsibly.

[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.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

In moving my Amendment 79, I wish to speak also to my Amendments 80 and 81. They are fairly self-explanatory and concern staff development in nurseries, nursery staff qualifications and nursery manager qualifications. We have already debated this area but I wish to impress on the Minister and Members of the Committee how vital it is for vulnerable children to have as much stability as possible in their early lives.

We are extending this entitlement to families, particularly disadvantaged families, and encouraging them to place their children in group settings at the age of two. Therefore, we need to think how we can ensure that that environment is stable and that their carers are as reliable and regular as possible. According to the 2008 child workforce paper, staff turnover was 16 per cent in daycare settings and 5 per cent in settings within primary schools. We do not have details—at least, I am not aware of them—of how much variation there is from that 16 per cent level. Sixteen per cent seems high to me, but some places may have staff turnover levels of 20 per cent or more. It seems to me that if staff were offered more training and development, we could prevent such a high turnover. The difficulty we find ourselves in—certainly this has been the case in the past—is that high levels of vacancies in nurseries make it difficult for these businesses to make a go of it. The chief costs to these businesses arise from staff training and development and staff pay. If they want to save money to stay in business and keep the service going, they have to target staff training and development.

In addition, the current economic climate is very challenging for all enterprises. My concern is that the training and development of these staff might be undermined. I know that even in these difficult financial circumstances much effort has been put into ensuring that that does not happen. However, I would like the Minister to give an undertaking that he will monitor where these two year-olds are going—whether they are going to satisfactory, good or outstanding settings—and publish that information. Could we be given better data on staff sickness absence rates and turnover rates in these settings so that we can better understand what is going on and the consequences for children’s stability? Perhaps Members of the Committee who are interested in this area and the government adviser, Bernadette Cunningham, could meet with the relevant person in Ofsted to discuss these issues with them.

Finally, I would like some information, if possible, from the Minister on whether he expects many of the leaders and managers in these settings to opt out from this graduate requirement. Can we expect most of these settings to continue to be graduate-led settings? I look forward to his response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, briefly, I support the broad thrust of my noble friend's amendments because this is quite clearly an important stage of children's development. We have just had the second Frank Field report The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults, where again he emphasises that:

“The strategy should include a commitment that all disadvantaged children should have access to affordable full-time, graduate-led childcare from age two”.

I relate that also to the encouragement that the Government are, in my view, rightly making to encourage single parents and parents who have not been in work before to get into work—an additional need.

I of course accept that the exact number of hours may not be a possibility, but this is nevertheless an important area. It takes me back so many years to the beginning of nursery education. I always think of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who was very unkindly known always as “Mrs Thatcher, milk snatcher” when she was in fact responsible, much more importantly, for the abolition of the Act that stopped local authorities opening nursery schools and classes. I remember being one of a group going to lobby her about that, all those years ago, but even in those pre-school playgroup days there was that argument about the extent to which people ought to train and be trained. I was not always entirely on the side of the belief that everyone should be trained. You were learning so much within the process, with the help of experts in this field, that many of that generation went on to be very involved in dealing in their children's education.

I make that as a background comment in view of the enthusiasms of all these people who have been commissioned. There is Frank Field, Graham Allen, who is doing yet another report, and I have forgotten the name of the woman—

[Baroness Walmsley]

Clare Tickell.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

Yes. We will be seeing an update of this going on the whole time and, to my mind, it could not be a more important age group or area so I hope that the spirit of what my noble friend's amendment stresses will be very much borne in mind.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, like the noble Earl, we are committed to a diverse and high-quality early years sector. The department will be publishing its foundation years policy statement later this summer and, as we discussed earlier today, it is currently consulting on a revised EYFS framework following Dame Clare’s review, which will set out our proposals to build on existing requirements relating to qualifications and training for childcare providers. The early years foundation stage, we think, outlines staff qualification requirements that are proportionate and encourage suitably qualified staff into the early years sector. Nursery managers, for example, require at least a full and relevant level 3 qualification, equivalent to A-level, and at least two years’ experience of managing an early years setting or other suitable experience of working with children. We have seen steady progress in recent years in the skills of the early education and childcare workforce, with over 70 per cent now qualified to level 3.

In her report, however, Dame Clare Tickell noted the need to reduce the complexity and burdens of the existing framework, and to recognise the sector’s growing capacity to take on more responsibility for its own quality and standards. It is ultimately employers who have the strongest interest in ensuring the best possible skills and qualifications among their staff and in ensuring that the most effective arrangements are in place. I am sure that many noble Lords would agree that improving the quality of early education and childcare is not just about the level of staff qualifications because it is also supported by the wealth of dedicated, experienced staff in the sector with on-the-job experience, which in some roles can be as important as formal qualifications.

Education Bill

Baroness Howe of Idlicote Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, perhaps I may return to the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, who has called himself a novice but was extremely cogent. The amendment refers to the,

“duty to promote academic partnership”.

I wonder whether that is what the noble Lord really means. I know that there are partnerships of all kinds between schools. He mentioned some in music and sport. I am slightly worried about the word “academic”. I am not challenging him but I want to highlight it.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I think that the aspiration behind these amendments is to be applauded. The hours that might or might not be available are more of a problem. Whether there should be some tinkering with the hours required must be a matter for more careful thought on Report. Certainly, I am intrigued by the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, and there is a lot to be said for it.

We have got quite a lot of flexibility in how academies will develop. Whether there is room for this in the new schools, I do not know. At one of the schools I was at, the Fleming report approach worked extraordinarily well. There was no question of other students knowing about it at all. Everyone was very much on a par and no one knew who was entering in that way and who was not.

My question for the Minister is: who is in charge and are they sufficiently qualified to teach those who are being educated in prisons—young offenders and so on? There is a great deal of young offender education, which I know the Government want to put on a much more comprehensive basis and for many more hours. Under those circumstances, it would be good to know whether any of these amendments might apply.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising the issue of teacher quality and continuing professional development. We have heard that evidence from practitioners—which can be supported, as if that were needed, by a study by McKinsey—has found that the most successful education systems are characterised by strong systems of professional development, high levels of lesson observation, as the noble Earl argued, and continuing performance management. Also understood is the importance of teachers learning from the best and applying appropriate changes to their own teaching practice. Our approach to CPD and leadership training for teachers is based on that evidence. We are keen to improve the capacity of schools to take the lead for the training and development of teachers, and to create more opportunities for peer-to-peer training.

A key part of our overall proposals is the creation of a new network of teaching schools. This will help give outstanding schools the role of leading the training and professional development of teachers and head teachers so that all schools have access to high-quality professional and leadership development. We have also set up an independent review of teacher standards led by outstanding head teachers and teachers, whom we have asked to recommend to us new standards of competence and conduct for teachers. We hope that these standards will underpin our proposed reformed performance management system to make it easier for teachers to identify their development needs. The terms of reference for the standards review specifically require the standards to include the management of poor behaviour.

The noble Earl also suggested that teachers should have to be qualified in child development and behaviour management. I completely agree that these issues are of the utmost importance. Those points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, and by my noble friend Lord Elton. Training in relation to these issues is already included in all initial teacher training and trainees must demonstrate their knowledge and skills in these areas in order to attain qualified teacher status. However, I was struck by the points made by my noble friend and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and I will follow up those points with my honourable friend Mr Gibb, who is the Minister responsible for this area. I hope that the noble Earl will also be pleased to know that the Training and Development Agency for Schools has recently developed and put in place a package of support to improve training in behaviour management for all teachers.

The noble Earl also raised the important question of classroom observation. Again, I agree with him—as I think do all noble Lords—about the importance of that. We are keen to encourage more teachers to take part in school-based collaborative and peer-to-peer professional development and to get feedback on their own practice. That is one of the reasons why we are taking steps to remove the so-called three-hour limit that the current performance management regulations place on the amount of time that a teacher can be observed. I know that these are probing amendments but, as regards some of the specific suggestions, I agree with the points made by a number of noble Lords that a requirement to undertake a minimum amount of 50 hours of CPD is not the route down which we want to go, but I know that he was seeking to elucidate the broader points.

My noble friend Lord Lexden raised the important issue of partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. I am sure that we can all think of lots of examples where that is going on. I agree with him that it would be good to see even more of that. We are working with groups in the independent sector such as the Independent Schools Council and the independent state school partnership forum to explore how we can get more partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. As he said, schools from the independent sector can apply for teaching school designation. I think that three independent schools have already made such an application.

It is also the case that independent schools can apply to the education endowment fund that helps support new approaches to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in maintained schools that are below the floor standard. I hope that will be another area that will please my noble friend, as we are trying to build closer relationships and break down some of these barriers that have divided the sectors. As regards his specific amendment, however, he may not be completely surprised to discover that a statutory and particularly prescriptive approach is not one to which I am attracted. However, I would certainly be very keen to do all that I can to bring the two sectors together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about the quality of offenders’ education. I am afraid that I am not able to reply to her specific points but I will follow that up with the Ministry of Justice to see whether we can get her an answer on those.

There is clearly broad agreement that raising the quality of teaching is important. I hope that I have reassured the noble Earl that there are plans in place to improve this aspect of the education system. We are keen to raise teacher quality by creating the conditions in which schools and teachers take responsibility for driving their own improvement, as has been discussed. In thanking the noble Earl very much for—

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[Lord Elton]

Without going into the broader field just raised, would my noble friend perhaps look within the school confines, which is what he is addressing here? It seems to me that classroom support staff, who may spend two days at a time in sole charge of a class, are in a position so analogous to that of teachers that they could perhaps be separated from the remainder of the staff for the purposes of this legislation. I realise that, as they more rarely have sole responsibility for the children, they are less at risk but it seems that the risk, although less, is just as real and the damage could be just as great.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, the more I listen, the more I am sad that we did not have the amendment from the noble Lord, Lord Phillips of Sudbury, because that would have put things into a much clearer perspective. I have the gravest doubt the more I listen, frankly, and I agree more and more with my noble friend Lady Howarth.

[Lord Lucas]

I always find it very hard to agree with the Telegraph, so I have been having a terribly tough time over the last 15 minutes or so. Although I would say to the Telegraph and others, as they said of us, that they have brought it on themselves and that I have every sympathy for wanting to look after teachers, we have to produce legislation that is practical and that works. I cannot see how what we have in front of us works with Twitter, Facebook and the inevitable communication that there will be between parents and, particularly, pupils. You really cannot have a teacher hoicked out of school with these sort of allegations and not have it flying around on the net. The wording in front of us seems to seek to tackle this by criminalising the children and the parents who will be doing this. That is most unwise. The damage really only occurs when some newspaper picks up a story and eviscerates a teacher to entertain its readers. That is the evil; I do not believe that we should be trying to curb more than that.

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[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I hope that my noble friend the Minister accepts that my noble friends are trying to help the Government produce a good piece of legislation and that he will consider the very thoughtful case made by my noble friend Lord Phillips. In an earlier debate, I said that I was somewhat comforted by the possibility that the police would be able to apply to the court for the restriction to be lifted. However, I take the point that my noble friend Lord Phillips and the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, have made that the last few words of new Section 141F(5) skew the position of the court in the direction of the alleged perpetrator and not of the child. Personally, I think it would be a very good idea to take that out.

I am also very convinced by my noble friend's argument about inserting his proposed new paragraph (b)—in Amendment 73HH—into subsection (10) of proposed new Section 141F, so that the restriction could be lifted once the person has resigned or been sacked. I have had a great deal of evidence sent to me by campaigners against child abuse particularly, it has to be said, in relation to independent boarding schools, where of course the opportunities are greater. Very often, however, what my noble friend said is absolutely right: it does happen that it is in the school’s interest to sweep it under the carpet and quietly say, “You go away and resign and we will say no more about it”, because these schools are financial organisations and they will lose money if things get about that dreadful things have happened there.

We really have to be very careful if we are to pass legislation that might encourage that situation or protect those people because I am told that what happens is, yes, they go away from that school but they pop up somewhere else and carry on. I am sure that my noble friend the Minister is most concerned about safeguarding children and, secondly, concerned about innocent teachers who might have allegations maliciously made against them. We somehow have to find the right balance between those two things.

I would say one more thing about what the noble Lord, Lord Black, said. The Human Rights Act asks us to draw a balance between the rights of free speech and the right to privacy of the individual. We have to bear in mind that it is not all in the direction of free speech. The Act talks about the rights to privacy for the individual as well and there, again, we have to create the correct balance.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, when I spoke a little earlier, I was trying to say that I was sad that the two groupings had not been moulded together because it was very important to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, had to say before the Minister has the duty to reply. He now has that advantage but I was also impressed by what the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said previously about his own experience of looking at a similar approach to that which the Government are thinking about. In the end, for a number of reasons, they did not go down that path.

We have heard today of the disadvantage that it would be to some groups, if not to others, to say nothing of this sort of behaviour spreading around the country without anyone knowing what would happen if allegations are true and proved. I am afraid that we have had too many instances in the past of things coming to light much later on. We also know the damage that has been done to so many young people as they grow up. I very much look forward to what the Minister has to say because I hope that Members, obviously not just in this House but in the other House, will read carefully what has been said during this debate because it should have considerable influence, along with what the Minister will say to his colleagues in the other place.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

First, my Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Phillips, for giving me an annotated photocopy last week of his proposals because it enabled me to work my way through them and really think about them. Having done so, if we are to have legislation of this form then the amendments that he has put forward and the powerful arguments he has made from his own experience are compelling. However, I want to draw the Minister's attention to Amendment 73HB, which would delete that phrase in subsection (5) where the court, in thinking about “dispensing with the restrictions”, can have,

“regard to the welfare of the person who is the subject of the allegation”.

That was picked up by a number of Members here. In our debate on the previous group, we were concerned that the Government were considering teachers, and only teachers, and not other professional groups. For this phrase to be included in the legislation is so illuminating. It speaks volumes to me of the mindset with which the Government have approached this issue. Again, we see the Government thinking of only the teacher vis-à-vis, in this situation, the child. That is so disturbing and demonstrates their tunnel vision approach to this whole issue. I hope that they will take this whole matter away and think again.