Education: Development of Excellence

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for bringing forward this debate. Having listened to it so far, I respect the need for standardisation and competition in education. However, having been engaged since the 1960s in seeking an education that takes on board the diversity of the UK, I can only say that the changes to enable black children, especially black boys, to succeed still continue to be a nightmare for parents, teachers and students. Unless a determined effort is made to unlearn the Aryan myth of white superiority, we will be standing here saying the same things yet again.

I ask the House to realise one more time that for the descendants of the enslaved African, education is the only means of achieving upward mobility. The quest for education has been described fully in an autobiography entitled Up From Slavery by Booker T Washington. It is still relevant today. Although, since its abolition, slavery has been long gone, the Aryan myth of white supremacy is alive and well, as we read every day in our newspapers It is sometimes conscious, but at other times unconscious, due to conditioning. Black adults have had to learn how to deal with this myth. Some Aryans, to their credit, have unlearnt the stereotypical view of colour. Others have not, and this directly affects the children in our schools. Teachers cannot do this alone.

Much has been done by the UK to distance itself from racism by producing many reports—Scarman, MacPherson and so on. Laws have also been put in place, including the Race Relations Act, and there have been many publications from the black community, including From Slavery to Freedom by Vidya Anand, and Gus John’s agenda for education. It does well to refer back to Bernard Coard, who suggested how the black child was made educationally subnormal in the education system. Much of that has gone but the well-being of the black child is still an experience that has a long way to go.

However, black British children in schools need equal treatment to be seen as the norm. The measures required are obvious. A case for unlearning racism has been made over and over again. Then and only then will we recognise that the black British child needs education, and that is everyone’s responsibility if we are to have peace in our country. There is a real need for booster groups for each and every school—an organisation of black and white adults who are committed to the survival of their brothers and sisters. Experience has shown that such groups’ presence in schools has an unbelievably positive impact as a source of influence for behaviour modification.

I realise that I have reached my time limit but, before I sit down, I should like to say that it is not all doom and gloom. I want noble Lords to know that Diane Abbott has held regular boostings, especially for young black boys, and now for the girls. Noble Lords will find that those who have had schooling but with extra lessons have done extremely well in this country. They have been achieving eight or 10 A* grades in their examination results. We have seen an increase in the number of children heading for Oxford or Cambridge. For that I should like to say a big thank you, but there is a lot more to be done.

Education Bill

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[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?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Yes, I understand that they certainly would.

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[Lord Baker of Dorking]

I do not support everything that the present Government do. I think a lot of what they are doing is brilliant and wonderful and I speak in favour of that, but up to 14, I would make it a very prescriptive curriculum. Rab Butler said in one of his minutes that all children should go through the common mill of education. I think there is a connective knowledge required in our country that all children should have, whatever part of the country they come from and of whatever race or creed. At 14, there is a natural division of the ways. It is rather like the pattern in Europe. Europe generally distinguishes between upper secondary and lower secondary at the age of 14. What I would like to see slowly develop is four different pathways open for youngsters at 14: an academic pathway, perhaps a bit similar to the grammar school, but wider than that; the technical pathway; the voluntary pathway; and a creative arts pathway. I am coming round to this, it is very true. Do wait; there is better to come.

I am directing my remarks precisely to the curriculum and to this amendment because I am going to say why some of these things should or should not be in and that will take a very long time. Do not tempt me to get into that area. In the requirements mentioned in the amendment—there you are, I am on course again now—there is a spread of different activities. I am engaged in establishing technical schools at 14, which have some of these things in them—in fact, they have all of these things and go rather wider. One might think that by having technical schools, I am narrowing the curriculum. Not at all. In the technical schools, they will have technical subjects to study but they will also study three GCSEs: English, maths and science. We do not think that an IT GCSE is necessary because IT is so infusive today a particular GCSE is not needed for it. They would also have a foreign language: German for engineering, not Goethe; French for business, not Molière. They will also have humanities subjects: history of engineering and great scientists.

When we come to the curriculum, it goes much wider than the amendment. The amendment fights the battles in the way of yesteryear because much of what is said in the amendment is covered in school today. Sport, for example, is legally required up to 16 in schools, and that will be in our academies as well. This is the first occasion we have been able to actually speak in the Committee on the curriculum. It is probably the most important, radical change still waiting to be made in the education system.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I do this because most people have concentrated on the curriculum but I would like to speak a little about the children who will receive the curriculum. My understanding is that teachers act in loco parentis. One of the most important tasks of parents is to love and nurture their children in all the many guises of that task. As educators, one would expect teachers to assume the role designated to them as they often spend more time with children than parents can afford to do in today’s world. One way of doing that is to ensure that all children are offered the choice of an enriching curriculum, as outlined in the noble Baroness’s amendment. The amendment outlines many areas in which teachers have an opportunity to see the child in his or her entirety.

The children in our schools have issues when they come to school. Some are angry through having knowledge of terrible deeds, some are fearful, some are traumatised by the loss of loved ones, some are insecure and some are reluctant to engage. Surely, not being able to find a safe, reliable place in which to express their feelings will not enhance their talents. Many of the areas listed in the amendment would, if adopted, make a school a beneficial place for children in today’s world. We may need a charter for learners when looking at the sort of curriculum we should be providing.

Teachers should be able to fulfil a parental role. That is something that we need to look at very carefully when we are talking about a curriculum for schools in today’s world. When children are at play or are performing tasks they enjoy, you get more from them, learn more about what they are doing and are really in a position to guide them. Looking at a child playing a game, playing music or talking about it shows us the way to build the curriculum.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I shall speak briefly as I am well aware of the frustration of the government whip, who may feel that there is a filibuster going on. God forbid that that should be the case. I have no experience of the English education system as I was born, went to school and have spent all my life in Scotland. However, I appreciate the principles behind the amendment and this section of the Bill. Everybody wants a broad balance in the curriculum; that is motherhood and apple pie. I was struck by the account of the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, of a meeting on the national curriculum, where all the different lobbies tried to get their own obsession or point of view across.

I certainly favour having a core curriculum, but the details of the amendment are such that it may impose restrictions on the ability of faith schools to have the flexibility to take account of the core curriculum but at the same time pursue the ethos of their faith in their schools. It seems to me that this amendment—

Education Bill

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, when I think of my own childhood, members of the opposite sex were not the ones who caused the problems. Certainly these days when the staff of many schools are entirely female, you have to allow women to search men, and therefore men to search women, if those are the circumstances in which people find themselves. It must always be advisable to have a same-sex search, and it must almost always be advisable to have a witness, but imagine a situation in which a teacher is alone with a group of pupils and believes that one of the pupils has on them something that they could easily dispose of if they had the chance, whether it was drugs or a weapon. If they were out in the country, something could be dropped easily before they came back.

Searching consists of having the power to search, not actually saying, “Palmer, turn out your pockets”. The pupil would know that the member of staff had the power to search if they did not comply, and would therefore do as requested. This is a necessary part of the structure, but I am sure that no head teacher is going to advise any of their teachers to search when they do not have a witness, except in circumstances when nothing else is possible. I think that we can trust teachers and head teachers to use the clauses as they are in the Bill wisely.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, having spent practically my entire life in this country fighting against stop and search, and marching on the streets about it, I can tell you the effect that being stopped and searched has on any human being. Why try to impose this on a child? Teachers have adequate powers with which to take the child away or do all sorts of things, but one should not take away the dignity of the child. In any number of cases when the police could not find anything, they made something up and criminalised the child. Some policemen have been known to say, “I am not changing my mind”. At that time, people in uniform were respected and believed. We had to confront those cases. I urge noble Lords to think very carefully about providing that power in the classroom. Children are there to be nurtured, loved and taught what is right and wrong.

It is a difficult situation because we have taken away from parents powers to discipline their children. I was told that I was a Victorian when I said, “My child does not do this or will not be allowed to do the other”. That was the attitude of most Caribbean parents. Children were children. We are turning them into fodder for the criminal courts. I ask the Minister to look very hard at this measure and take it away if he can. I have seen no empirical data that suggests that searching a child in the classroom will in some way prevent damage to other children—although it may prevent criminal damage to the building. I ask you to think about the child.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I had not intended to intervene, but I am inclined to think that this is yet another area that will require a longer time to work out the right solution. All of us are aware of the reactions of children—not necessarily young children but those who have been abused at some stage in their lives. We know, sadly, that that has happened in a number of homes, quite apart from outside when children have been abused. There are new methods of abuse, including cyber access and so on. Such activity is, alas, spreading.

However, I am worried about totally removing the passages from the Bill. What the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, said needs a little more thought. I also want to listen to what the Minister will say in reply before I come to any full conclusion on this. The very best way in which schools operate is when everyone co-operates and trusts one another. We have a head teacher opposite. However, there are situations where that co-operation does not happen, and there can be situations in which children are in danger through lack of action. I am going to wait.

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[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I agree in principle. The wording in the amendment,

“to retain an excluded pupil on the roll”,

means that the child is still recognised as having a connection with the school and that their education elsewhere needs to be funded and their outcomes included. That is one of the problems with the approach that we are discussing, because it does not allow for that subtlety. A panel might decide that the decision to exclude was wrong and that in principle the child should be reinstated, but there then needs to be a discussion with the child, the parents and the teachers as to the best course of action. For the child to go to another school with their head held high because a positive decision had been taken would be very different from their going to another school because they had been permanently excluded. It would wipe the slate clean, and they might well be better off having another opportunity elsewhere. I wish I had been clever enough to table an amendment that could allow that degree of subtlety, but I agree with the noble Baroness that that is ideally what should happen.

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, a child is disadvantaged in the system not only because he might have SEN or a disability; he is disadvantaged because of the colour of his skin—something he cannot change. I have heard and seen nothing that would make that case better. I have spent many years going into schools. This is a multiracial society, but racism is still alive and well, and children are hit most when they are young and at school. I just feel that this Bill gives us an opportunity to do something about this. People must unlearn their racism when they teach. I am very happy to talk about this outside, but I waited patiently to hear one person say they realise why young black men and women are in the prison system. If you trace it back, you will find that they were excluded from schools. Second-chance education often helps them. Many people may disagree with me. I have heard people tell me that they are not racist. I have some amazingly subtle ways of asking them questions. They then discover that their conditioning has made them racist. The colour of skin is an important thing for a multiracial society, and I ask noble Lords to give some thought to that.

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[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

I hope that noble Lords will forgive me as I, too, forgot something. I forgot to say that the Minister sent me a three-page letter the last time I spoke in the debate. I thank him very much for that and I am sharing it with my colleagues.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend a couple of questions. First, I should be very interested in being included if he is telling people about the trials. The important thing is that they focus on the distillation—on the kids at the end who do not respond at the beginning to whatever is done. They are the ones who are abandoned at the end of the system. They are allotted four hours’ tuition at home but that does not happen and people forget about them. I very much hope that, as is the case with prisons, organisations are given money on the basis of the results that they achieve. We may try that at the back end of some of the trials so that innovative ideas are encouraged in rescuing these children who have proved difficult to educate.

Secondly, am I right in understanding that, when a school is concerned that a pupil may have special educational needs which may be causing problems, it has the absolute right to require and obtain the assessment when it is needed, rather than, as in the current system, waiting for the LEA to decide that it is prepared to do it?

Education Bill

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, in recognition of the number of speakers, I think it would be helpful if I just list the concerns of the black community about the Education Bill and home in on my particular concerns. There is a lack of explicit reference to race inequality issues in the Bill and in the White Papers published so far by the coalition Government since May 2010, and well as a lack of reference in speeches made by Ministers. The emphasis is on sanctions rather than prevention, including the withdrawal of guidance for countering racist bullying in schools. This withdrawal of detailed guidance, combined with an emphasis on reducing prejudice-related bullying through sanctions and exclusions rather than through prevention and education will have a negative impact on equality issues in teachers’ education and development.

On academy status, granting academy status primarily to schools that happen to have low numbers of students from minority ethnic backgrounds troubles us.

On the powers to search pupils, judging from experience over many years in the criminal justice system, those powers are likely to have an adverse impact on young black people and on relationships between students and teachers. Let us remember that those students are British subjects, although they may come from different roots.

On curriculum changes and equality, we regret the non-publication of an equality impact assessment of the proposal to introduce the English baccalaureate and the lack of information about how the curriculum content will provide for diverse communities and prepare pupils to live in a diverse society. The equality assessments of the Education Bill and The Importance of Teaching White Paper are inadequate. There is a lack of clear proposals for monitoring the outcomes of new procedures, combined with the possibility that the drive to reduce bureaucratic burdens on schools may result in vital and valuable sources of information for monitoring, evaluation and planning being lost.

I intend to raise these issues individually as we go through the Bill, but the most important point on this list for me is the new exclusion procedure, which has already been identified by two or three noble Lords. It is likely to have a disproportionately negative impact on black pupils; we know that. The aspiration of Caribbean immigrants to Britain in the late 1950s was to get what they saw as a good education for their children, an education that would open their minds as well as their hearts. It was expected that the children would learn how to think and fully to feel, as described by Dr Anthony Seldon in his lecture to Sir John Cass’s Foundation in 2010. That was the intention of those immigrants when they submitted their children to the schools system. Alas, it soon became evident that schools were not equipped or, worse, were unwilling to meet those children’s needs.

Schools became extremely good at excluding black pupils or sending them to ESN schools. Bright children went to those schools from the age of five. Sometimes they were put into the ESN category because they had a brother or even a cousin in the school, so it would make it easier for the parents if both were there. It was not based on the child’s ability to acquire knowledge. Expulsions were used and the reasons given could not be justified. The exclusion of black boys became headline news in this country. This Bill seems to negate all the work that has been done to change that.

It was up to the black community to examine what was actually happening in schools. It was found that the destruction of self-image was perhaps an unintended consequence that made young men feel frustrated and, worse still, dislike themselves. I am sure that we can all point fingers at what we are reaping from that generation of young people. Research pointed to the fact that institutional racism in society was the main cause, a conclusion strongly denied by professionals. However, perseverance by the black community led to a deeper understanding that the reasons given for exclusions and suspensions revealed the possibility that decisions to suspend children were based on factors other than behaviour. Due process has generally been denied to suspended pupils. They are not allowed to present their side of the story. They are not allowed to face their accusers or to bring witnesses of their own to corroborate their testimony. They are never able to question the person bringing the charges.

The Bill will take away the right of any child even to have so much as an inch of power in the classroom just to say, “This did not happen in a vacuum”. I am sure the House will agree that this is a perversion of the right to due process. Patience and guidance through racism awareness training has made some difference, but we all recognise that there is still a long way to go. By removing the right to appeal, this clause in the Bill has the potential to reverse all the gains made. The Government’s Bill appears to be more concerned about the risk of undermining the authority of head teachers than that of pupils. That cannot be right. Can the Minister say what real power the review panel will have if undermining the head teacher is foremost? Can he also tell me how the points I listed at the beginning of my remarks will be dealt with in the schools curriculum?

I hate to suggest that with possible malice aforethought this Bill is aimed at further disenfranchising the black community, although many of my peers feel strongly that that is what is about to happen. I should like some assurance from the Minister that ways will be found to show the community that it is wrong. Many of my generation have been engaged in the battle to bring about changes in the system and to see their children get equity. The Bill has many good points, but it also has the capacity to make black people lose out. I well remember the “rivers of blood” speech. Each time the education system is tweaked or tinkered with, a greater sub-class is created. I ask the House to consider British children whose skin colour is different and who have suffered immeasurably from the system.

Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Howells of St Davids Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Howells of St Davids]

My Lords, having studied the Bill before us—thankfully, it is very short—I saw little that took into account community cohesion. It appears to say that academies are the answer to all the problems in our school community and that those who are not satisfied should set up their own schools, give local authorities the brush-off and go their own way. I sincerely hope that my understanding is not correct. Today I want to bring before you my concerns about the British Afro-Caribbean child, whose experience of the school system in the early days was less than satisfactory.

Most of the children coming into Britain then were sent to SEN schools. We are now at a point where black children, given the support suited to their needs, can and do succeed. However, many parents now feel that the battle almost won is about to recreate itself in what this Bill suggests and there is a fear that the struggle will begin again. I make it clear, once and for all, that education has always been accepted as the means of upward mobility. Research will show that from the day when the phonics of the alphabet were made available to the enslaved Africans, they have embraced education, looked within the system and more or less found solutions. It is now well known that black children achieve in schools at an equal rate to kids from other backgrounds.

The high standards set by the last Government were easily reached by black Caribbean children. What changed most of all was the need for the children to understand that the expectations for them were the same as those for white children—expectations that came from families but were reinforced by teachers, for which I thank them. My purpose today is to make it reasonably clear that there is a need to consider the deep-seated cultural and social differences that characterise black children in our attempt to educate, counsel and assist them in the UK system.

From the early 1960s, a variety of efforts have been directed towards the amelioration of the apparent problems, ostensibly a function of certain disadvantages suffered because of skin colour—but that is untrue. Research efforts of a bewildering variety have been designed and implemented to discover the reasons for the poor performance of such children as a group, using various measures to construe that a lack of intellectual and academic abilities could be a function of genetic disablement.

Parents took this as a condemnation of their children. The result was that we set up Saturday schools, run by black parents and black teachers. They showed that the black child is capable of achieving any standards that are set. We have now seen a great improvement among young boys. The major shortcomings in attempts to educate young black children, and the inability or unwillingness to come to grips with the deep-seated differences between them and white youngsters, meant that it was left to the black community to secure for its children a mixture of black and white teachers so that both black and white cultures were valued and recognised in their own right.

We know today that disadvantaged schooling is a real issue. Also, there is a recognition that the dominant culture, being lettered, needed to value the oral culture. That culture’s styles, thought processes, behavioural learning patterns, concept of time perceptions, morals, value systems, communications and assessment had to be understood by LEAs so that today we have black children achieving, in most cases, as well as their white counterparts.

Nothing in the Bill appears to recognise the steps that have been taken. I therefore ask the Minister how he sees the academies achieving the standards of community cohesion if, as the Bill suggests, schools could opt out of the control of local authorities and, at the same time, become foundations, which are then likely to separate communities still further. That is all that I want to add about the Bill at this time. I feel sure that the black community fears that the Bill, as set out, would set us on the road to segregation.