Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Thursday 3rd July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I will speak to the question that Clause 31 stand part of the Bill. I apologise to the Committee for not having taken part in Second Reading.

I also thank the Minister for her very clear statement at the start of this debate. I want to make a relatively short contribution to highlight one of the issues the Welsh Government wish to take forward in this Bill, and to acknowledge the constructive collaboration of the two Governments and their officers on this and other issues raised in the Bill. In particular, I want to make a few comments on children not in school registers. Liberal Democrats have long called for such a register, including in our recent manifesto. Here I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Storey, who initiated this work in his Private Member’s Bill on the subject.

We agree with the NSPCC and the Children’s Commissioner that the register can be an important tool in keeping children safe. We understand the legal responsibilities parents have to ensure that their children receive an education. As liberals we believe that parents have a right to choose home education where they feel this is the right choice for their child. However, we are very concerned that the whereabouts of hundreds of children in England and Wales are simply unknown.

Education is devolved to Wales, and the Welsh Government already operate a register on their children missing education database. However, the Welsh Education Secretary states in the legislative consent memorandum to this Bill that

“the children not in school provisions proposed in this Bill would enhance the”

children missing school

“policy (from a safeguarding perspective) with the CNIS register, school attendance order (SAO), strengthened suitability assessment and child protection clauses applying alongside the CME database arrangements”.

I am pleased that the Welsh Government have recognised that the provisions in this Bill as introduced would have resulted in local authorities in England having greater levels of contact with elective home-educated children than local authorities in Wales. If the provisions were not extended to Wales, as proposed by the tabled amendments, duties on families in Wales would be considered less stringent than those in England. I welcome the Welsh Government’s pragmatic approach, which should produce a seamless system between the two nations.

The action of the Welsh Government in taking this opportunity to enhance child protection measures is also commended by the Children’s Commissioner for Wales, who recognises the importance of addressing the gaps in provision to ensure that children not in school have all their rights fulfilled. It is to these rights that I would like briefly to turn. When we talk about a children not in school register, we tend to have discussions, as we have had today, about the rights and responsibilities of parents. But in her letter to the Senedd’s Education Committee chair supporting the LCM, the Children’s Commissioner for Wales highlighted the three tests her office has published in relation to children’s rights on home education. They are:

“First, that all children in Wales can be accounted for and that none are invisible. Second, that every child receives a suitable education and their other human rights, including health, care and safety. And third, that every child is seen and their views and experiences are listened to. This is essential for the first two tests to be met”.


These three tests help us to focus our attention away, slightly, from the needs and rights of parents, and to consider the needs and rights of children.

The Children’s Commissioner for Wales points out that the Welsh Government make no reference to children’s rights in their LCM and is surprised that no children’s rights impact assessment has been produced with the proposals. She said that such an impact assessment would help ensure that the Welsh Government fulfil their own duties to consider children’s rights, provide valuable transparency for key stakeholders, and assist in identifying and mitigating any unintended consequences.

I am sure that the Welsh Government will rise to the challenge and produce a children’s rights impact assessment to ensure the rights of the children of Wales, but can the Minister say whether the rights of children in England will be similarly addressed? It seems that the Bill, and Clause 31 in particular, goes a long way to ensuring that the rights of children are met in both England and Wales, but the Government need to make it clear that that is their intention.

[Lord Wei (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a parent of home-educated children. I take this opportunity to echo the earlier tributes to the many home-educating families who have worked so hard over such a long period to raise their children well, which, as another Peer mentioned, the data shows. I also thank the Minister for her offer to meet Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I am around in August and, if officials can meet us to discuss our concerns, I would like to join some of those discussions.

I support Amendments 202C, 227, 227A and 286, which collectively interrogate what I believe is a sweeping new framework that Clauses 31 and 34 impose. These clauses lie at the heart of the Bill’s proposals to establish this compulsory register of children not in school, and to empower local authorities to demand detailed information from parents about how and why they are educating their children outside the mainstream system.

Let us be clear: I fully accept there are very few tragic cases where parents, intent on harming or neglecting their children, have cited home education as a smokescreen. However, in pretty much every instance, the abuse was already present when the child was still enrolled in school—or, indeed, in state-run care, as has just been mentioned. To take these horrors and use them to justify a regime that treats all parents who choose to home educate as presumptively suspect is not only disproportionate but profoundly unjust. It risks creating a system that soaks up scarce safeguarding resources chasing bureaucratic compliance by good families, while truly at-risk children continue to slip through the net precisely because professionals are mired in routine paperwork.

Clause 31 in particular gives local authorities extraordinary powers. It requires the registration of any child not attending school full-time, regardless of whether there is any reason to suspect unsuitable education or harm. The data that can be demanded under this clause is extensive, including personal details, philosophical convictions, protected characteristics, information on supplementary educational providers and more, which will be held indefinitely and cross-referenced with other local records. As I mentioned at Second Reading, I totally oppose this register on principle.

Here we can see exactly the concern raised by Reclaim Rights for Children and other expert bodies, including many academics, that the proposed children not in school register requires information far beyond what is necessary. Even the Department for Education itself has conceded that simply having a child’s name, date of birth, home address and the names and home addresses of each parent should be sufficient to support the existing duties of a local authority to try to identify those children not in school and ensure they are receiving efficient, suitable education. Yet the Bill goes on to say that there may be other data that it would be helpful to capture. That is not how lawful data processing works. Under well-established principles of minimisation, personal data processing must be limited strictly to what is necessary and not exceed the purpose for which it was collected. You do not gather more than you need simply because it might be helpful.

Clause 34 compounds these concerns. It not only record facts but makes local authorities active interrogators of family choices without clear statutory boundaries. There is no real limit on what might be demanded under the vague heading of sufficient information. This invites mission creep, allowing data collected ostensibly for educational oversight to be repurposed for broader monitoring. It risks empowering officers who may be ideologically suspicious of home education to harass families, treating any non-co-operation as evidence of neglect and flipping the burden of proof entirely.

That is why I strongly support Amendment 286 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, which probes how these sweeping new powers would intersect with children who have special education needs. Children with education, health and care plans or who receive Section 19 or Section 61 provision are already under a robust statutory framework. Pulling them into an additional generalist register not only duplicates bureaucracy, which does not sound very efficient to me, but risks destabilising finely balanced arrangements, often secured only after long struggle and hard evidence of need. The local authority already knows exactly what education these children are receiving; they do not need another compliance net.

Curriculum and Assessment Review

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

My noble friend is absolutely right. We need to make sure that young people are able to express themselves and to engage in discussion and debate. That is why we welcome, for example, the work that Geoff Barton and his Oracy Commission have carried out in this important area. It is also why developing language skills is vital in early years to enable children to thrive. We are funding evidence-based early language interventions, targeting children who need extra support with their speech and language development.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, these Benches support the prioritisation talked about in this Question. There have long been calls to include this on the school curriculum. But young people are generally digitally savvy, and the problem is often the older generations, who struggle with everything going online and are not digitally literate in many cases. What are the Government doing to encourage local authority libraries to offer free courses on digital education to older adults?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I make no judgment about the digital skills of Members of this House, but the noble Baroness makes an important point about the need to ensure that adults can also access digital skills. In referring to libraries, she is also talking, I think, about the importance of being able to access the hardware as well to do that. We continue to fund the essential skills legal entitlement through the adult skills fund, which will enable an opportunity for fully funded study for eligible adults who are 19 years and over and who do not have either essential English and maths skills up to level 2 or digital skills up to level 1. This will ensure that, alongside what is happening in schools, adults have the crucial basic digital skills that they need to access the modern world.

Children in Care: Gone Too Far Report

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord, although I add that the number of children going to Scotland is, happily, very small. He is right that we need to put pressure on local authorities, but I think he would also agree that it is not just about pressure: it is about reforming the way in which we approach provision. We are doing that through the foster care strategy, and the support we are giving to kinship carers but also, crucially, the establishment of regional care co-operatives, which will really change the way that we commission and deliver these placements in future.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, as reported by the Become charity, there is a substantial lack of data on children from ethnic backgrounds who are placed in care facilities miles from home. Compared to 1% of white children, there is a lack of data on the placement of one-third of Asian children, more than 20% of black African-Caribbean children, and 72% of children from other ethnic backgrounds. We also do not know how these figures interplay with other exacerbating factors, such as the number of placement changes. What provisions will the Government make to improve the quality and availability of data on the placement of children from ethnic minorities?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

We need accurate data on the placement of all children, whatever their ethnicity. Indeed, I thought the noble Baroness might have referred also to special educational needs. She will remember that, both in our children’s social care strategy and in our SEND delivery plans, we have talked about much better data dashboards, the prototypes of which are being developed at the moment.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow my noble friend, who has raised some very serious issues. I will speak to Amendment 84 in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Storey. This would require the funding formula to provide for transport costs for 16 to 18 year-olds on the same basis as those eligible children up to the age of 16. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, for sort of agreeing with this amendment.

It is so important that children from poorer families should be helped to remain in education and training beyond the age of 16. The Liberal Democrats wish to introduce a young people’s premium, based on the same eligibility criteria as the pupil premium, but a portion of it would be paid directly to the young person aged 16 to 18 to support them with travel and other education-related costs. It is entirely logical that the core funding rate for full-time students aged 16 to 19 should match that of secondary school pupils.

The UK faces a serious skills deficit, with many business leaders expressing concern that too few workers have the necessary skills to meet their future job needs. We need young people to enter the work market having learned relevant skills while in education. We also call for grants rather than loans for those over 16. Those entering the workplace, as well as adults, are unlikely to want to take on repayable debt. Government support for enhanced education and training would benefit not just individuals but the country too.

We recognise that transport costs currently present an insurmountable barrier to many people who want to learn and achieve. Transport costs across England can be extremely high, and the availability of discounts or free travel for children and young people varies considerably by geographical location. This means that, in many places, and particularly in rural areas—my noble friend Lady Humphreys will say more about this shortly—transport costs can pose a fundamental barrier to children and young people accessing the education and training which is most appropriate to their abilities and aspirations.

Since the abolition of the education maintenance allowance, or EMA, the only outstanding student support is extremely limited. A young person can apply from their college or school sixth form, but it is not guaranteed; it is discretionary and cannot be relied on. It is not sufficient for the numbers who require support, and not necessarily sufficient for transport costs, let alone wider needs. It would certainly not be enough to cover transport costs for potential further travel to undertake work experience placements, for instance, as required by the Government’s beloved T-levels.

This is a very modest proposal which would have an enormously beneficial effect on many young people, and I urge the Minister to accept it.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am pleased to follow my two noble friends. I wish to speak to Amendment 85, in the name of my noble friend Lord Storey, to which I have added my name. This amendment requires that the funding formula be accompanied by an impact assessment on state-funded schools in rural areas.

I live in a rural area of north Wales and, like other noble Lords, fully understand the vital importance of rural schools for their communities. If schools are forced to close, young families will not move to an area and this is not conducive to building the thriving, forward-looking rural communities that we wish to see. Rural schools are also an important employer. Even a small school with a handful of teachers will provide a range of other jobs—for example, in administration, caretaking, cooking and teaching assistance—that would be lost if the school closed. Crucially, as with other services, pupils should be able to access their schools within a reasonable travel time.

However, children in rural areas across England, such as Devon, are being short-changed and taken for granted by this Conservative Government. With the challenges ahead of us as education recovers from the pandemic, we cannot allow such children to be left behind in its wake. Why do I believe that children in rural England are being short-changed and are in danger of being left behind? According to the House of Commons Library, schools in Devon receive £345 less per pupil than the national average across the UK. This difference in funding obviously has an impact on school budgets, which needs to be analysed and recognised through an impact assessment. Any adverse impact of the funding formula on staffing and the quality of education provided, for example, needs to be assessed and addressed.

So much can be done to help rural schools. An impact assessment could help point the way forward, to fund schemes such as those my Liberal Democrat colleague Kirsty Williams implemented in Wales when she was Cabinet Secretary for Education. I know that this Schools Bill does not apply to Wales because education there is devolved, but I cite it as an example. In government, Kirsty Williams introduced a rural schools strategy, including a £2.5 million per year grant for rural and small schools to be used for improving digital technology, supporting collaboration between schools or providing administrative support in schools—

[Baroness Wilcox of Newport (Lab)]

If I may intervene, much as I laud Kirsty Williams, who was a Liberal Member of the Senedd, that was under a Welsh Labour Government of which she was the sole Liberal Member. I dealt with her a great deal as the education spokesperson. I make that point in case the Committee is not aware.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I think I clearly said that she was the Cabinet Secretary for Education—perhaps I should have said under a Labour Government. She also introduced a presumption against closure for rural schools and, for the first time ever, a definition of a rural school. I am sure similar strategies are happening in England, but there is obviously scope for other schemes to be highlighted.

Impact assessments are an important part of our decision-making process. They set out the objectives of policy proposals and help us with facts and figures to evaluate them. The impact of the funding formula on the funding of rural schools needs such an evaluation so that we can understand whether the formula works for them and meets their needs. I hope the noble Baroness can tell me that there will be an impact assessment of the funding formula for future stages of this Bill.

[The Lord Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich]

My Lords, I speak on behalf of my right reverend friend the Bishop of Durham and declare his interest as chair of the National Society. I am grateful to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, as I will speak in favour of Amendment 85.

The amendment presents an important consideration in the context of Church schools, which are predominantly small and rural. More than 1,000 Church of England schools have fewer than 100 pupils. In my diocese, comprising most of the glorious county of Suffolk, 35 of our 87 Church schools have fewer than 100 pupils—crucially, each of them serves often quite isolated rural communities. A funding formula ensuring that those settings are viable is key to securing future provision for their communities.

Schools Bill [HL]

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 2
Wednesday 15th June 2022 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Humphreys]

89: After Clause 38, insert the following new Clause—
“Universal infant free school meals grant: annual up-rating(1) The Secretary of State must, for the financial year beginning 1 April 2023, provide that at least £520.60 is payable from the universal infant free school meals grant to schools and local authorities for each registered pupil who is entitled to it under the terms and conditions of the grant.(2) The Secretary of State must, for the financial year beginning 1 April 2024 and for each financial year thereafter, provide that the amount payable under subsection (1) is increased in line with inflation as measured by the consumer price index.(3) In this section “universal infant free school meals grant” means the grant of that name paid to a school or a local authority by the Secretary of State under section 14 of the Education Act 2002 (power of Secretary of State and National Assembly for Wales to give financial assistance for purposes related to education or children etc).”Member's explanatory statement
This amendment increases the free school meals grant in 2023-24 to reflect the increase in inflation since September 2014, before pegging it to inflation thereafter.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I am moving Amendment 89, tabled by my noble friend Lord Storey, who regrets that he cannot be here today. This amendment seeks to increase the free school meals grant in 2023-24 to reflect the increase in inflation since September 2014, before pegging it to inflation thereafter.

I must admit that the Government’s announcements yesterday on free school meals came as a bit of a surprise and made me wonder whether this was an attempt to gazump our amendment, and even whether our amendment had pricked their collective conscience. I am sure that there were more external influences at play here.

Lib Dems feel very strongly about universal free school meals. They were introduced by us under the coalition Government, with the aim to provide free school meals to all pupils in reception, year 1 and year 2. However, since these meals were introduced seven years ago, the Government have increased the amount paid to schools by just 4p per meal. This is an increase of just 1.3%, from £2.30 per pupil in 2014 to £2.34 today, despite the latest ONS figures showing that food prices have soared by 7% since the introduction of the policy. Had the funding increased accordingly, it would currently stand at least at £2.46 per pupil.

Free school meals were introduced as a way of giving children a healthy lunch every day and saving parents hundreds of pounds a year. However, funding has been slashed in real terms, despite food prices going through the roof. While we welcome yesterday’s announcement of an uplift in infant free school meals funding, this does not go far enough. The effect of the Government’s announcement will be to raise the rate per meal to £2.41. This is still short of the £2.46 per meal that would be needed to increase funding in line with increased food prices.

Our amendment reflects the increase in inflation overall since September 2014 and calls for a 19% increase to reflect this, meaning that the rate per meal would increase to £2.74. Can the Minister clarify whether the Government’s new proposals also include a commitment to an annual increase in line with inflation and food costs?

The coronavirus crisis has shone a new spotlight on the issue of child hunger, with demand for food banks soaring and almost a fifth of households with children unable to access enough food in the first weeks of lockdown. Yesterday’s announcement is a sign that this Government know just how terrible their record is on free school meals. Too many children are going hungry under their watch, yet the Government still show complete unwillingness to expand this offer to some of the most disadvantaged children in the country on universal credit. It feels like a one step forward, two steps back approach from Ministers.

The Government cannot continue to ignore their own advisers, such as Henry Dimbleby, who recently published the National Food Strategy. In an Oral Question on 6 June, I asked if the Government would commit to extending free school meals to all children whose parents or guardians are on universal credit. These are the children who will be most impacted by the cost of living crisis. I believe the Government’s stance is that families on universal credit would still have to meet eligibility criteria or be in receipt of legacy benefits. Could the noble Baroness confirm this is still the case? We believe that every pupil whose parents or guardians are in receipt of universal credit should automatically qualify for free school meals. I beg to move.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green (Lab)]

My Lords, I am inclined to support this on the grounds of the report in the Times on Monday on what schools are facing in early years. Children are coming to school who have not been potty-trained; they cannot even use a knife and fork and are still feeding out of a bottle. Those children have suffered during the pandemic. The one thing that gave them some influence and that made a difference, given that many come from a background where English is a second language and there are perhaps other serious challenges at home, was being at school. While I do not necessarily go along with every aspect of this amendment, the noble Baroness raises a valid point at its core.

I have said this before: where should we put our money in education? We should be putting it in the early years because we know that, if we do not get it right there, the cost—not only to individual children but to the state in remedying it in the future—will be much more significant.

--- Later in debate ---

I therefore ask the noble Baroness, Lady Humphreys, to withdraw Amendment 89.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

I thank those who have taken part in this short debate. I am grateful for the support from the noble Lord, Lord Young of Norwood Green, and very much appreciate his emphasis on supporting early years pupils. Obviously, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, has said on the pupil premium. It is another matter that is very close to Liberal Democrat hearts. I enjoyed very much the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Wilcox. As a fellow Cymraes—a Welshwoman—I share her pride in what the Welsh Government are achieving.

I thank the Minister for her very thorough response. I will read Hansard carefully, but I reserve the right to return to these issues, if necessary, on Report. But I will withdraw this amendment.

Amendment 89 withdrawn.

Grammar Schools

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I begin by also thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, and congratulating her on securing this timely and important debate. As a former grammar school pupil, a former teacher in a comprehensive school and a parent of two sons who attended the comprehensive school in which I taught, I felt that I might have some practical experience to contribute to this debate. I certainly valued my years in the local grammar school and appreciated the advantages that my education there gave me. But I was also very aware of the disadvantages my education bestowed on the pupils in the local secondary modern school. Failure to pass the 11-plus left many of these pupils having to deal with feelings of rejection and of having let their parents down. Sometimes, even, feelings against the grammar school pupils boiled over into open hostility and did very little for social cohesion in our small community.

For the majority of us in the grammar school, social mobility beckoned. Very few of us remained in our locality. We followed out careers outside our community and became doctors, teachers, head teachers, mathematicians, scientists, anaesthetists and successful businesspeople. But I would argue that social mobility was probably easier in those days because of the economic situation. Work was fairly easy to obtain; all sectors of housing were available to those in work and seeking a home; and mortgages were affordable, even to those on a teacher’s starting salary.

A comprehensive system of education began for us in Wales when one of the earliest comprehensive schools in the UK was opened in Holyhead on Anglesey in 1949. Now, every single school in Wales is a comprehensive. We have no grammar schools or academies and the Assembly’s Education Minister, Kirsty Williams AM, has recently pledged that there will be no grammar schools in Wales on her watch.

We in Wales acknowledge that performance in PISA tests has left us lagging behind our counterparts in England, but GCSE results in 2016 were more promising. This year in England, 66.6% attained five A* to C grades, whereas in Wales the figure was 66%. In England, 6.4% of pupils gained A* grades, with 6.1% gaining the top grades in Wales.

In Wales, there is an acceptance that we have to do better, but there is also pride in what we do right. When the OECD came to Wales to report on our education system, it had many critical things to say about it—many things needed to change. But the number one thing it praised was the fact we have a comprehensive system in Wales and that we are dedicated to it. International evidence shows that the best and highest-performing education systems across the world do not select their children. The Welsh Education Minister insists on making her decisions based on evidence, not dogma.

As someone who has seen comprehensive school pupils become doctors, dentists, scientists, teachers, head teachers, businesspeople, builders, plumbers, electricians, accomplished actors, musicians and artists, and all take their place in the world, I believe the comprehensive system, in the Government’s own words, has allowed them to go as far as their talents would take them, without having to attend a grammar school. All the pupils whom I taught studied all their subjects, except English, through the medium of Welsh, but they still attained careers in the UK.

The Government believe that they are responding to the call from parents for new grammar schools, but I contend that most young parents today do not understand the reality of the grammar school system. They have not yet had to cope with the failure of a child to pass the 11-plus or 13-plus exam. As my noble friend Lady Pinnock has said elsewhere, the headline should read, “Government to create new grammar and secondary modern schools”—for, inevitably, once what was known as the “crème de la crème” is taken from a comprehensive school or academy to form a grammar school, one is left with a secondary modern school and a system with all the problems that we thought we had begun to overcome 50 years ago. It is self-evident that selective schools give a minority of pupils a first-class education and a majority of pupils a second-class education.

Schools: Faith Schools

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I can confirm to my noble friend now that the church would not be forced to part with the land, and nor would it be compulsorily purchased.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

Protecting the ethos of particular schools is not confined to church schools. There is a widespread feeling that multiacademy chains make new academies in their own image. How will the Minister ensure that locally developed values, nurtured over the years, can be maintained?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness makes an extremely good point. It is very important that sponsors coming into schools are very conscious of what the noble Baroness calls “locally developed values” and make sure that schools’ traditions, which I am very well aware of in relation to one school that I sponsor, are maintained.

Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my name to those welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to his place in this House. In doing so, I want to say how grateful I am to your Lordships for allowing me to speak in the gap and for the opportunity to take part in this debate. At this late stage in the proceedings, I will keep my contribution relatively brief and restrict my comments to the education sections of the Bill. I will also be posing a few questions for the Minister to consider as I go along.

As a former teacher, I always welcome moves to attempt to improve the performance of pupils, teachers and schools, and, at first glance, these attempts to define and improve failing and coasting schools may have some merit. However, I join many colleagues from this side of the House in expressing a certain amount of scepticism. Are these moves a genuine effort to improve standards in our state schools or are they another step on the road to achieving the Government’s ideological ambition of complete academisation of the education system in England? The Bill presents a significant increase in the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in schools and, in a great many respects, diminishes the powers of local authorities.

At this point, I should like to comment on one of the Government’s proposed measures for defining coasting and inadequate schools. I have always had some doubts about the value of the five A* to C GCSE grades as a means of judging the performance of schools, although, as a gold standard, it probably gives a headline impression of a school. However, I have to admit to a certain amount of approval of one of the Government’s assessment measures: the Progress 8 measure. Based on students’ progress across their eight best subjects and using key stage 2 results in English and Maths as a baseline, this measure gives a far clearer indication of a student’s attainment across their secondary school career. The measure includes a double-weighted GCSE mathematics component and a double-weighted English component, and I welcome the inclusion of the three highest grades from the EBacc subjects studied. These can be science subjects, computer science, geography, history and languages.

However, for me, the most welcome aspect of this measure is the inclusion of the best three grades from any of the remaining subjects included in the “open group”—a group which, importantly, can include three vocational subjects. This gives a far fairer indication of the pupil’s progress and of the progress of the school in educating the child as a whole. It also gives a far clearer indication of the breadth of the curriculum within the school. Perhaps most importantly, it gives an indication of the success of a school in preparing pupils for the next stages of education.

I talked earlier about the Secretary of State’s powers of intervention in failing and coasting schools. It is estimated that there could be some 2,000 such schools across England. I would be interested in knowing from the Minister the cost of supporting schools where it is deemed necessary to intervene, the cost of the regional schools commissioners and the boards of head teachers which will be necessary to assist them, and the cost of converting the remaining schools into academies—and, indeed, whether the capacity exists within the academy system to deliver all this. The commissioners are responsible for more than 4,000 academies, 141—

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness has spoken for three minutes.

[Baroness Humphreys]

I am sorry. Perhaps I may just finish my sentence. How will the commissioners cope with the extra responsibilities that they will have?

Schools: Careers Advice

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am aware of the excellent programme to which the noble Lord refers. I am sure he is delighted with the increase in STEM subjects which has taken place under this Government. Schools should have a thoroughly close relationship with their local business professional communities and universities and, as far as his last point is concerned, it is one that I am sure all future Governments will consider carefully.

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, a UNISON survey in June this year showed that 83% of schools surveyed were no longer employing a careers adviser. Have the Government made an assessment of this situation?

[Lord Nash]

Yes. We believe that one-to-one careers advice is appropriate in certain circumstances but obviously all schools seek to identify their students’ passions and interests at an early age and develop them. The evidence is quite clear from a number of reports, including those from McKinsey and Education and Employers Taskforce, that the best careers advice for young people comes through activities and contact with the world of work. For many of our young people, particularly those from workless households, careers advice these days is as much about inspiration as actual advice on detailed careers.

Schools: Careers Guidance

Baroness Humphreys Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, for initiating this debate. I hope your Lordships will indulge me at the beginning of my contribution to the debate and allow me to explain a little about my professional background.

In the 1990s I was the vocational co-ordinator in a comprehensive school in north Wales. Among my duties was responsibility for the school’s careers policy and its implementation. I believe that we delivered high-quality careers education and guidance for our pupils. Careers lessons in the school were delivered through modules in the PHSE curriculum. We had an effective relationship with our careers service, which provided impartial advice that the pupils needed. Careers teachers were helped in their professional development by the education departments of the local authorities—and yes, we did take up work placements in local industries.

In common with many schools at that time, we used the system many noble Lords will remember—the Jiig-Cal programme. Jiig-Cal—or Job Ideas and Information Generator-Computer Aided Learning—did exactly what it said it would do. It generated ideas and information about jobs after pupils had completed questionnaires and the forms were read by a computer. Jim Closs, the designer of the system, has admitted:

“Sometimes pupils would react quite negatively to jobs of that kind being suggested to them, but one of the principles of careers guidance is to broaden the pupil’s horizons by putting before them ideas that they would never otherwise have considered”.

I agree with that. Although the system has received some criticism, studies have shown that 70% of the pupils who went through the system actually ended up in the jobs suggested for them.

From a teacher’s point of view, the most important factor was the process pupils went through before they completed the forms—being guided, and taking time to reflect on their own interests, skills and abilities, whether they felt they were academic or not, or preferred working indoors or outdoors. All those factors need to be considered when choosing a career. Above all, that led to pupils learning about themselves, valuing aspects of themselves and their choices and valuing and respecting the choices of others—whatever those choices might be.

I argue that almost everything that appears in the new guidance for schools in Section 29 were things we were doing then—except for bringing speakers from the world of work into our schools, and the emphasis on mentoring and coaching. Those aspects of modern careers guidance, inspiring pupils to consider other careers, would have greatly enhanced our provision at that time. However, there is increasing concern among professionals about the diminishing role of the classroom teacher in careers education and guidance. For me, there is a fear that inspiring young people on the one hand, without the reality checks of the processes we went through on the other hand, could lead to what I call the “Britain’s Got Talent” phenomenon—when someone appears on stage and nobody has ever told them that they cannot sing.

Perhaps we should learn from Australia, where, last year, the National Centre for Vocational Education Research reported on its study of more than 2,000 pupils. It found that while many pupils had planned to be lawyers, psychologists, designers and vets at age 15, when interviewed again at 25 the majority had ended up as sales assistants, primary school teachers and retail managers. The centre blames a “patchy” careers advice system which inflated pupils’ expectations, only for them to be dashed 10 years later. Psychologist Professor Helen McGrath said that parents—and, I would argue, teachers—need,

“to focus more on giving their children some realistic feedback about what their strengths are rather than giving that message of ‘you can do anything you want if you set your mind to it’ … You simply can’t do everything, and the end result is that you fall flat on your face when you realise that even if you work hard you’re not getting anywhere”.

Career Development Association of Australia vice-president Dr Peter McIlveen said that parents and educators must encourage kids to aim high but not aim for the impossible. He said:

“It’s vital that our kids dream big but also make those dreams realistic through good guidance”.

Good careers guidance has many aspects, and I welcome the detail we have been given in the documents. Those aspects include: mentoring, inspirational speakers, work experience and work visits, careers fairs, and interviews with careers officers, yes—but the input of dedicated careers teachers who help the child to understand his or her ambitions, abilities and skills, is also needed. Take away any one of those aspects and one is left with a system that is unbalanced and perhaps ultimately unfair to the child.