Adoption: Adoption Legislation Committee Reports
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, and the committee for their very impressive work on the adoption legislation.
Both reports that we are debating today represent a thorough and wise insight into the real issues being faced by adoption agencies and families around the country. I was impressed that the Committee has drawn extensively on its witness interviews and the evidence it had received and that, as a result, its recommendations are not based on ideology but on cold, hard facts and real experiences. As such, we see the reports as a genuine opportunity to embrace some fresh thinking in this area.
We remain proud of the fact that the last two pieces of adoption legislation in 2002 and 2006, introduced by the previous Government, genuinely transformed provision and put children’s rights at the heart of the process. However, we also see the need to reflect, learn and move on, and I hope that we can do this today.
I also hope that the Minister is genuinely minded to listen and engage with the debate given the imminent arrival of the Children and Families Bill in your Lordships’ House, which will result in the opportunity for these issues to be debated even more widely. While on this subject, can the noble Lord update us on the proposed timetable for the Bill’s arrival in this House, as there seems to be an ominous silence on that matter?
Having read through the reports again, I was struck also by how little the legislation requires changing. This point was made by a number of noble Lords. The more fundamental challenges that we face are about funding, training, the quality of reports, joint working and improved communication. I hope that these issues will not be lost when we finish debating the Bill, and that we can find a way to return to them. Perhaps a post-post-legislative scrutiny report will be required from the committee. I am sure that it would do a very good job.
I will highlight some issues in the report where there might be differences of approach between us and the current Government. A number of points that I will make echo those raised by the noble and learned Baroness, Lady Butler-Sloss, in her excellent introduction to the debate. First, we believe that the benefits of adoption over other permanent care solutions have been overstated. As the report points out, adoption is a sensible route out of care only for a proportion of children, and there is a danger that the current emphasis on this option will skew resources away from those providing equally beneficial forms of care. This point was made eloquently by my noble friend Lady King. Therefore we believe that it is essential, when a child’s future care options are assessed, that all potential provisions are considered on an equal footing, including long-term fostering, kinship care and special guardianship. We would like to see this in the Bill.
Secondly, we believe absolutely in the importance of early intervention. This means early intervention in supporting birth mothers and early intervention if a decision is needed to remove a child into care. This is why we have been so frustrated that the Government have allowed the Sure Start schemes to wither on the vine through lack of funding. This was and is a cost-effective way of providing community support and education to new mothers, particularly in deprived areas. It encourages new mothers to step out of the isolation of a potentially dysfunctional home environment and learn how to nurture their child successfully. It is crucial for identifying family problems from birth. I echo the points made by my noble friend Lady Armstrong concerning the role that health visitors and midwives can play. No other schemes that the Government are proposing come anywhere near the scale and comprehensiveness of the services that are being disbanded.
Early intervention also requires social workers with the training, judgment and experience to act decisively when a family is unable to meet the expectations of basic care and nurture. This is inevitably a tough call and should not be made alone. Equally, we should not allow bureaucratic form-filling to get in the way of social workers acting in the child’s best interests, and should not allow parents to play the system and drag out any chance of their child being removed and having a better life. These issues go to the heart of how we value, judge and reward good performance among social workers. I agree very much with the points made by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, with her considerable experience.
Thirdly, there has been considerable debate about the status of ethnicity in matching children to potential adopters. We believe that the wording on this in the previous legislation was clear. It made it clear that the interests of the child were paramount, and that in this context due consideration should be given to their religion, race, culture and linguistic background. Since then, there have been a number of allegations that the requirement is being overprescribed, leaving children trapped in care and awaiting a perfect racial match. The extent to which this has happened is difficult to quantify, but if the fundamental principles of placements need to be restated, let us use this opportunity to do so.
We are concerned that the Government have moved too far in the opposite direction by attempting to remove altogether the reference to ethnicity. Again, I echo the point that it would be helpful if the Minister would clarify the Government’s position, because it appears that by denying that we risk causing real hardship and unhappiness to children by placing them in families that do not understand their heritage. That is why we will push in the Bill for ethnicity to be listed as a welfare factor in the checklist to be taken into account in the matching process. This point was made by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley.
Fourthly, we absolutely understand the argument that there are too many adoption providers in England, which reduces the scope for making successful matches for adoption. Clearly, it is not acceptable that agencies guard information about suitable adopters or children awaiting adoption and are not prepared to share it for the common good. We are pleased to see that consortia and joint local authority working, combined with improvements to the national register, are beginning to address these problems. Further funding and inspection mechanisms could be used to make this the norm.
However, we share the concern of the committee that it is premature for the Secretary of State to take on extra centralising powers, in addition to the swathe of powers that he has already taken across the education sphere, to force outsourcing of adoption services. If anything, this might result in a greater fragmentation of the service at a time when streamlining is required. In addition, we want to be assured that proper measures are in place to scrutinise the decision-making process of the Secretary of State and hold him to account when the outsourcing of services is imposed. This is something that has been missing in other aspects of education provision, and we will return to the issue during the course of the Bill.
Finally, the key to judging how successful any measures are is to look at the outcomes. We know from statistics that looked-after children have worse health, education and employment outcomes than their peers, and this should continue to be a real worry for us. We have also heard that the older the child being adopted, the more likely it is that the adoption breaks down. However, as the report suggests, we need more hard facts on this. We believe that it is our responsibility to compensate looked-after children for the effects of early trauma, including removal from their birth mother, by providing extra investment in their care and support so that they can catch up and have parity with their peers. One way of doing this is to provide all looked-after children with a virtual school head, who will take responsibility for their educational attainment. We are also keen to explore other means by which outcomes can be measured and improved. Again, we will raise these issues during the course of the Bill.
I am grateful for the opportunity to raise these issues today as a rehearsal for the issues arising in consideration of the Bill. Again, I thank the committee for providing such a comprehensive prism through which to judge the Government’s proposals, and look forward to the Minister’s response.
National Curriculum
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the Minister for initiating this debate and for giving us all an opportunity to contribute to the consultation, which is clearly important. We have had a constructive and thoughtful debate and I want to continue in that spirit because, despite the very short timescale for the consultation, we have to hope that this is a genuine exercise and that our views will genuinely be taken into account before the final curriculum is put together.
This is undoubtedly a very important debate, not just among teachers and academics but among parents, employers and young people themselves. It lays the foundations of knowledge and skills for the next generation, and it is amazing how much we are defined by the years in which we were taught at school and by how much we and the next generation take them into our working lives. You can always tell how old you are by what poems you know and what books you read at school. They instantly give you away. The national curriculum creates a national presence and culture in society. There is never a perfect solution, and whatever we come up with, we will always be criticised. There will always be competing views on either side, but it does not alter the fact that we should always have an open and inquiring mind as to how we can get the best out of the curriculum and how it can be improved.
Before I comment on the detail, I should also like to give the Minister the chance to set the record straight on who drafted the proposals. He will no doubt have read the concerns from some of the department’s advisers on the history curriculum that the final draft bore no resemblance to the versions on which they were working as late as January. Can he reassure us that Michael Gove, in a fit of overexuberance, did not personally write the final version of the history curriculum?
I should also be grateful if the noble Lord can address the essential contradiction mentioned by several noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, and the noble Lord, Lord Storey, of the national curriculum applying only to maintained schools, of which there will be a shrinking number as more and more schools become academies. If it matters educationally that the curriculum is updated, how much real flexibility are we prepared to give to academies that choose to flout the direction of the Secretary of State? At what point would Ofsted or the department intervene, and what sanctions are available if academies veer off course in a major way from what is prescribed in the national curriculum?
We share the ambitions of the Government that every child should be stretched to fulfil their maximum potential. However, we differ because we also see the immense variety of attributes and learning styles that make each child unique. We therefore reject the hothouse philosophy that underpins these proposals based on every child being crammed full of facts and examined to see how much they have been able to retain. Some children undoubtedly flourish in such an environment but, for others, learning becomes a miserable and frustrating treadmill that can put them off the whole educational experience. This is why we have major concerns about the move to revert back to exams as the sole measure of success. I was surprised to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, had to say on this because, contrary to him, I believe that that takes a lot of teacher creativity out of the system and inevitably leads to teachers being put under pressure to teach to the test. The noble Lord seemed to imply that that was a heresy, but there is probably a lot of anecdotal evidence to support my position.
Lord Sutherland of Houndwood
I thank the noble Baroness for giving way. I absolutely agree that the heresy is actually to follow those principles rather than to accept them.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
Perhaps this is something for a longer debate but some teachers would say that they are desperate to escape the straitjacket of being forced to teach to the test but are literally prevented from doing so. We can all see the absolute merit of teachers being freed up to inspire and be creative in the way that they teach.
A couple of references have already been made to the academics and professionals who wrote to the Telegraph and the Independent last week. I share a number of the concerns those people expressed. They said that the new curriculum will severely damage educational standards. Without boring noble Lords too much, because I am sure a number have read the letters, I will just illustrate the point with a couple of short quotes. They said:
“The proposed curriculum consists of endless lists of spellings, facts and rules. This mountain of data will not develop children’s ability to think, including problem-solving, critical understanding and creativity”.
They also went on to say:
“Inappropriate demands will lead to failure and demoralisation”.
These themes were illustrated very well by the excellent contribution of my noble friend Lady Whitaker on the significance of design as a creative, multidisciplinary, problem-solving subject, which is really what we are looking for in terms of a progressive education but which is not really captured in the current proposals. Can the Minister comment on the widely held concerns that there is an overemphasis on learning by rote at the expense of deeper understanding and creativity in the way that the curriculum is being designed?
The consultation document also emphasises the need to learn from international comparisons. We absolutely agree that we can learn from high-performing countries and aim to do better in the international league tables. However, there is an increasing controversy about the comparisons and the conclusions that are being drawn from the data. That is why our party has resolved to remove the interpretation of the evidence from politicians and instead set up an independent body, an office for educational improvement, which will verify the research and provide genuinely well informed learning points for practitioners in the field. Can the noble Lord comment on whether he agrees that a greater degree of independent analysis would be beneficial in this regard?
Turning to the specific subject areas, I do not intend to comment on every subject, but will just pick out some key concerns which are symptomatic of our wider concerns. A number of noble Lords have mentioned history but they have not really gone into the detail, so it falls to me to do so. We accept that there is a need for pupils to have a greater grasp of the chronology of events along the timeline. However, we also agree with the critique of Professor Chris Husbands that you cannot address this by starting at the beginning of time with the youngest children and working forward, as seems to be proposed, otherwise, as he says,
“you end up with a seven-year-old understanding of the Saxons, a ten-year-old understanding of the Middle Ages and a fourteen-year-old understanding of the industrial revolution”.
More fundamentally, unlike the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, we feel that there is a concern that the curriculum is focused too much on our island history and does not have sufficient material about our global history and our interconnections.
On geography, we share the concerns mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, that the debate about climate change has been cut out of the curriculum for children under 14, when many children will stop studying the subject. Young people need to understand the impact of melting glaciers, floods and drought on the physical landscape. Can the Minister advise whether this is a deliberate decision to remove the item from the curriculum?
On mathematics, we welcome the fact that personal finance, budgeting and money management are to be included and we agree that pupils need to understand the basic tools of maths. However, going back to my earlier point, there has to be a way of allowing teachers to be creative and inspiring, so that maths does not just become a memory test of facts and formulas but is something more than that.
On English, we agree that spelling, grammar and sentence construction are important. This was included in the 2007 curriculum. However, we are concerned that the shift to final exams and the removal of controlled assessment risks undermining the teaching of speaking and listening skills, which are critical to the world of work. Perhaps the Minister will comment on how these skills will be assessed in future.
Finally, we share the concerns mentioned by several noble Lords about the long-awaited PSHE review giving so little direction to schools on issues that are crucial to the health and well-being of young people.
We will continue to engage on the future curriculum, but we believe that flawed thinking undermines the proposals. At its heart is the assumption that every child must pursue an academic career. We take a different view. We see the rise of the leaving age to 18 as a great opportunity, so we are developing plans for a gold-standard set of qualifications that test academic, practical, creative and technical learning up to 18. We are taking the time to get these proposals right. This includes engaging with employers.
I realise that my time is up. I reiterate my thanks to the noble Lord for this debate and look forward to his response.
Schools: Careers Guidance
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will provide face-to-face careers guidance for all young people in schools.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, statutory guidance has been published to underpin the duty on schools to secure independent and impartial careers guidance introduced in September 2012. The statutory guidance places a clear expectation on schools to secure access to independent face-to-face careers guidance where it is the most suitable support for young people to make successful transitions, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, or those who have special educational needs, learning difficulties or disabilities.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply. Has he been made aware of the serious concerns that we raised during the passage of the Education Act 2011 that the changes to careers provision would lead to a worse service for young people? Is he now aware of the growing evidence that our concerns unfortunately have proved to be justified? That view is echoed by the Commons Education Committee, which reported in January. It said:
“The Government’s decision to transfer responsibility for careers guidance to schools is regrettable. International evidence suggests such a model does not deliver the best provision for young people. The weaknesses of the school-based model have been compounded by the failure to transfer to schools any budget with which to provide the service”.
What do the Government intend to do to address these failings, in particular the overreliance on referring pupils to careers websites, when it has never been more important for children to have guaranteed, personalised, face-to-face careers advice?
Lord Nash
I am aware of the concerns to which the noble Baroness refers. However, hardly anyone—from Alan Milburn to Ofsted—had a good word to say about the quality or effectiveness of the careers guidance provided by Connexions. That is why we gave responsibility for securing careers guidance to schools. They know their pupils best and can tailor provision to their individual needs. The £200 million we have saved on Connexions careers guidance has gone to help protect the schools budget, which itself is a pretty remarkable performance bearing in mind the state of the public finances we inherited. We know of schools which have seized the opportunity.
There is no gold standard for careers advice. It is a difficult area. The duty has been in place for less than two terms. To check on progress, we have asked Ofsted to undertake a thematic review, which will be published in the summer. Information on websites can be very helpful, and the Government are considering the Select Committee’s recommendation and will respond shortly.
Schools: Academies
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, does the Minister acknowledge the problem, which was recently identified in the Academies Commission report, that many academies are in effect setting their own rules for admissions, which are incredibly complex for parents to navigate and are in effect excluding many children from disadvantaged backgrounds from the academies programme?
Lord Nash
I do not acknowledge that. All admission authorities, be they local councils or self-governing schools, including academies, must comply with the new, fair admissions code. Anyone who has concerns, including the noble Baroness, about how state-funded schools are admitting pupils can formally object to the Office of the Schools Adjudicator. The law requires that academies and free schools make the majority of their places available to children from the area.
Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the Minister for repeating this Statement today. The Statement implies that the reason for this embarrassing U-turn is because the single exam system was found to be impractical. However, as the noble Lord is fairly new to his brief, he may not have been aware of the more fundamental cause for concern that was building up across this House and among head teachers, parents, employers and academics, about the broader issues raised by the EBacc.
Concern was expressed about the way the proposals were conceived and announced in the first place—without any consultation, looking for easy headlines rather than a strategy for genuine change. There were concerns at the speed with which Michael Gove proposed to implement the changes, even leading the Tory-led Education Select Committee to condemn the timetable as “too much, too fast”. Employers were concerned that the EBacc placed no value on subjects critical to our future economic competitiveness, such as design and technology, construction and engineering. Business leaders, such as the CBI, were also concerned that the proposals took no account of the rise in school leaving age and risked,
“putting young people into a ‘holding pattern’ for five terms, when they should be striving for a high standard at 18”.
The arts world was concerned that the creative subjects, such as art, design, drama and music, had been sidelined, despite the incredible value that our creative sector brings to the UK economy. Indeed, for a cohort of children this announcement is already too late, because 15% of schools have already dropped one or more arts subjects in anticipation of the original 2015 changes.
Teachers and parents were concerned that the new EBacc exams would create a two-tier system, dividing pupils into winners and losers at age 16, and resulting in many pupils leaving schools with a so-called certificate of achievement which would have had no value with employers and risked stigmatising young people in the way that those who failed their 11-plus were stigmatised in the past.
There were also concerns from across the education profession that the proposed curriculum was backward looking. Michael Gove seemed to relish its focus on the past, even saying to my honourable friend, Karen Buck, in the other place,
“I do not see anything wrong with having the 19th century at the heart of the English curriculum”.—[Official Report, Commons, 3/12/12; col. 583.]
This was a flawed policy from the start. It demonstrated that Michael Gove completely misunderstands how to deliver change in the education sector and how to take those required to deliver the change with you. In fact, he appears to be having some difficulty in making the transition from being a journalist to running a large, complex ministerial department. Meanwhile, his constant vilification of teachers and constant demands for change have left the profession confused and demoralised. It is due an apology.
Many head teachers have already begun to implement the changes that were on the cards so that they would be ready for the 2015 deadline. They have been changing the timetables and recruiting teachers with different skills because even if they did not agree with the proposals and did not think that they were in the best interests of their pupils, they wanted them to do well under the new regime. So the damage has already been done. This misjudged policy will take time to reverse. I can only imagine what words are being used to describe the Secretary of State in staff rooms up and down the country today.
I am very conscious that I am laying the debacle firmly at the feet of the Secretary of State. It is true that he appears to relish running a department as his personal fiefdom, making policy affecting hundreds of thousands of young people on the hoof and chasing easy headlines. This is not the first time he has had to make an embarrassing U-turn when a policy unravels. But he is not an island, and Ministers around him, and the Prime Minister have to share the responsibility for allowing this cavalier behaviour to continue. I include the Minister, belatedly, in this.
Does the Minister now accept that the Government have burnt their fingers too many times by making ill thought out announcements, and that a different style of leadership and collaboration needs to be developed within the department? Can he tell the House whether an apology will be forthcoming to the heads and teachers who have already taken steps to change the curriculum based on the original EBacc proposals? Can he explain whether the difficulties in implementing the proposals for one exam in one subject was the only reason for the changes to the EBacc proposals, or does he accept that many of the other criticisms, such as those I have expressed today, have some validity? Can he assure the House that the Government take seriously the threat of a two-tier system of exams and that the proposal for a certificate of achievement will be scrapped?
Will the Minister agree to take time to properly consult teachers, parents and employers before he makes any new announcements on the reform of the performance tables so that we can be absolutely sure that they will focus on pupils’ genuine achievements and take so-called gaming out of the system? Does he now share the view repeatedly put forward on this side of the House, and by business leaders and others that we need a gold standard vocational qualification offer that is on a par with the academic subjects originally specified in the EBacc? Is the department continuing to consult on the proposal that course work will not form part of the new GCSE assessment because, setting aside the principle, there are a number of subject areas where this appears to be impractical?
By any measure this is an embarrassing day for the Government and for Michael Gove. Parents and teachers waking up to this announcement today will be angry and confused about the messages coming from the department. Rather than trying to cover up mistakes by making yet further announcements, the Secretary of State would benefit from a period of quiet reflection on the lessons learnt from yet another climb-down. Perhaps the Minister could take the message back to his boss that what this country needs is an education system that can deliver the skills needed for the future, not a nostalgic vision of the past. If he is serious about making lasting change he should consult widely, listen intently, and perhaps next time build a consensus before rushing to the press.
Education: Academies and Free Schools
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 4 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for facilitating this debate this evening and very much welcome the noble Lord, Lord Nash, to his new role. As he will know, his predecessor developed a reputation for listening and engaging and I very much hope that the noble Lord intends to build on that style. I look forward to debating with him in many months to come.
As has been well demonstrated by this debate, we share a common passion to drive up education standards. As we have heard, the previous Government played their part in this. They were restless in pursuit of innovation to ensure that every child received a stretching and enriching education. We took radical steps to tackle failing schools and narrow the attainment gap between rich and poor pupils. Our policies were firmly rooted in evidence-based initiatives rather than ideology; or, as it was said at the time, what matters is what works.
Sponsored academies were part of our reform agenda. They were set up to address persistently underperforming schools in areas of high deprivation, requiring a sponsor to assist with school improvement. They were, and are, a success story. I add my congratulations and acknowledgement to my noble friend Lord Adonis, who is sitting next to me and who has received much praise in this debate. He was very much an architect of that model, as we have heard.
Regrettably, this Government have taken the concept and redefined it to focus too much on school autonomy as a prize in itself. In doing so, it has lost some of the unique transformative power that characterised the early experience. The latest government research has shown that sponsored academies, building on the original concept of introducing new school leadership, continue to outperform other models. However, they are a small percentage of the whole and are now massively outnumbered by the so-called converter academies: that is, schools already judged outstanding or good by Ofsted which have chosen to become academies since 2010. This rush to convert all schools to academies highlights some of the essential differences between us and this Government. For example, we do not believe that there is just one model of success.
When I first took over as shadow Minister, I visited a number of schools involved in the London Challenge initiative introduced by the previous Government. Some were academies, some were maintained schools. All are now highly performing schools with strong and innovative school leaders. Indeed, Pimlico Academy, with which the Minister has been long connected, was a beneficiary of the scheme. The key success factor was the intervention and collaboration between schools, put in place to improve the quality of teaching. As a result of this initiative, London’s schools went from being among the worst to being among the best performing in the country. The success of such an approach is confirmed by a growing weight of national and international research which identifies that collaboration is the key to reform. However, meanwhile, the recent report from the Academies Commission showed that many of the converter academies which had been required to support a struggling school nearby in order to gain academy status have now broken that promise with no comeback. The same report identifies a growing trend towards complex admissions procedures which dissuade the less determined parents. As a result, it too often remains the case that poor children are served by a poor education. The research shows that children from a socially deprived background remain disproportionately more likely to attend a school that is classed as underperforming by Ofsted.
Therefore, we have concerns about the focus of the Government’s current academy programme. We are worried about the lack of emphasis on the power of partnership and collaboration. We fear that the early focus on underperforming schools in areas of high social and economic deprivation is being lost. We see a teaching profession demoralised and criticised when teachers are the key to improving teaching quality and we see parents struggling to navigate complex admissions policies. Therefore, I hope that the Minister is able to reassure the House that a more measured approach, addressing these issues and genuinely informed by existing evidence, will be adopted in the academy strategy of the future.
Education: English Baccalaureate Certificate
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 5 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they will consider deferring the timetable for the proposed introduction of the English Baccalaureate Certificate in schools in the light of concerns raised by the Confederation of British Industry and other business leaders that the new examination system may not meet the needs of the United Kingdom economy in the 21st century.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash)
My Lords, the CBI recognises that the exam system is in need of a thorough overhaul. We share its view that the new system must meet the needs of business. We are considering all the evidence gathered through our public consultation, which closed in December, and we anticipate reporting the results of that consultation, including the timetable for introduction, early this year.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply and I welcome him to his new role. Given his extensive business background, does he not share the view of other business leaders that the new exams in 2015 risk causing serious long-term damage to our economy by downgrading skills such as engineering, computing and construction, and neglecting creative learning? Can he also confirm that it is the Government’s intention to issue pupils who do not pass their EBacc certificate with a certificate of attainment which, as anyone with experience in the state sector knows, will have no value at all with employers and universities? Finally, does he accept the overwhelming logic of putting the proposals on hold so that business leaders really can help to develop a respected, work-ready curriculum with exams that will enable young people to be successful in the modern world?
Lord Nash
My Lords, the point underlying this Question may be a little confusion about the stimulus to the system we have created through the EBacc and a broad and balanced curriculum. I should like to reassure the noble Baroness that the Government are determined to ensure that all pupils study a broad and balanced curriculum so that they have the cultural capital to be able to compete both in this country and in the modern world. We have had to stimulate some behaviour through the EBacc because all the international evidence we have studied shows that successful international countries include these core academic subjects, and that stimulus has been extremely successful. Over the past two years, the proportion of pupils taking the EBacc has risen from 23% to 49%, and for those schools with a high element of free school meals, it has risen from 10% to 41%. However, we will also be exhorting all schools to teach a broad and balanced curriculum, as they are obliged to do and as Ofsted inspects for.
Education: Vocational Education
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to raise the status and quality of vocational education.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, we commissioned the Wolf review and have reformed vocational qualifications in order to restore rigour to them. We have announced reforms to post-16 funding for vocational education and work experience. We have increased the number of apprenticeships by nearly two-thirds. We have significantly expanded the UTC and studio schools programme. We will continue to open new UTCs, technical academies and studio schools, and will work to raise the quality of vocational education and the esteem in which it is held.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I thank the Minister for that reply. Does he agree that it is vital that vocational education has the same status and funding as the purely academic education provided for those working towards a university place? Does he further agree with the recent report of the CBI that the raising of the school leaving age to 18 provides an ideal opportunity for a rethink on the curriculum and examination systems, which could then include a gold standard vocational qualification for those less suited to academia? What lessons will the department take from other successful countries, such as Germany, which offer all young people a mix of academic and vocational education according to their individual talents and abilities?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I strongly agree with the noble Baroness about the importance of making sure that vocational and academic qualifications have equal esteem, are held in equal regard and have equal funding. That is one of the reasons why the reforms to post-16 funding, which we brought forward in the summer, will make sure that young people at colleges and schools after the age of 16 will be funded on the same basis for both vocational and academic qualifications. That will also leave more money for work experience, which is important too. We can always learn from other countries but the underlying point is that there is broad agreement that we need to treat vocational and academic qualifications with equal weight. The Government are trying to do that.
Schools: Arts
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
We have already announced and taken steps on some of the elements of Mr Henley’s excellent plan. The formal response is not as immediate as he, others and my noble friend would have liked, but we are expecting it early in the new year.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, does the Minister not acknowledge that the maths on this simply do not add up? There are only so many teaching hours in a day and given that it has been estimated that the EBacc will take about 80% of the curriculum time, is it any wonder that the latest figures from the Joint Council for Qualifications are showing that entries for GCSE in design and technology, art and design, music and drama are already beginning to fall? The Government’s policies are already having an impact on the take-up of these important subjects.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I make the important point that EBacc subjects are not compulsory. It is for schools to decide what is the best thing to offer; if schools think that the EBacc is not right for all their pupils, they should act accordingly. However, as I said, if between 20% and 30% of time is available for other subjects, it is perfectly reasonable to expect that those important subjects we have discussed will continue to be offered. In terms of what has happened so far to the number of pupils taking GCSEs, obviously any results we have had so far in 2012 cannot have been affected by the EBacc since the time lag means that none of that would have worked through.
Education: Early Years
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for initiating the debate today and I thank all noble Lords who have spoken for their passion and commitment on this issue. It is fair to say that the proposition unites all sides of the House. However, it is also true that we have differences on, for example, the means of delivery, the extent of the funding and the role that central government should play in driving this forward as a priority.
As we have heard today, the evidence demonstrating the crucial impact of a child’s experience between nought to five on their subsequent life chances continues to amass. I echo the comments of several noble Lords and pay particular credit to the work of Graham Allen MP, and others, who have provided a compelling analysis of the social problems which occur if children are not given the right kind of support in early years.
There was a stark illustration of this in the Telegraph a couple of weeks ago comparing the brain scans of two three year-old children, one of whom had been nurtured and stimulated and the other of whom had been neglected. The damage shown to the neglected child’s brain was at such a level that the child could never fully recover. The impact on the child’s cognitive and social development was permanent.
As we have heard, this has broader social policy implications. For example, a recent report by the Sutton Trust on social mobility showed that in vocabulary tests at the age of four and five children from poorer backgrounds in the UK are, on average, 19 months behind their peers. This gap widens as they progress through school. The report concluded that it was vital for young children regularly to engage with adults who are able to stimulate their vocabulary, social and cognitive skills.
The prize for getting this right is more than just narrowing the attainment gap, important though that is, it also begins to address the cyclical patterns of persistent unemployment, addiction and crime that can be traced back to neglect at a young age. This point was made eloquently by a number of noble Lords, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jenkin, and the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne.
There are economic as well as social benefits to be gained. Not only does a solid early education benefit the children themselves, in the form, for example, of increased lifetime earnings, but it also cuts the cost of later remedial education and welfare benefits which would otherwise fall upon the state.
I fully acknowledge the argument of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and my noble friend Lady Massey that the challenge with which we are confronted in the UK is of a different magnitude to the fundamental educational needs being faced in the developing world. I pay full regard to that.
As I said at the outset, there was a great deal of agreement across the Chamber on the principle of early intervention and early years education. However, it is the practical application of these policies within that where the divides begin to show. I shall give some examples where we have some cause for concern.
First, as noble Lords have acknowledged, the Sure Start programme was a keynote policy of the previous Government. It addressed the fundamental need for early intervention by helping whole families improve their parenting skills as well as providing stimulating learning environments for young children. Despite its short existence, it was beginning to deliver results and we were rightly proud of its achievements. That is why we continue to be dismayed that this Government have refused to ring-fence and guarantee funding for the centres, resulting in cuts and closures. The department’s own figures show a net reduction in the number of centres of 281, while a recent 4Children survey reports that 50% say their finances are less sustainable, 55% no longer provide on-site childcare and 20% have reduced the number of qualified teachers. This has gone from being a success story that could have transformed children’s lives to one of a struggle for survival—fighting over scarce resources and tearing up the original concept of a comprehensive one-stop shop for young vulnerable families. What assessment has been made of the impact of cutting the funding to councils on the future viability of the Sure Start network and at what point would the Government be prepared to intervene?
Secondly, we are proud of our record of extending nursery places to three and four year-olds and initially welcomed the Government’s intention to provide free nursery education for disadvantaged two year-olds. Unfortunately, despite the coalition’s continued assertion that this will be funded by new money, it is becoming clear that this is not the case. Even a leading Conservative councillor has described the announcement as “typical smoke and mirrors”. The facts appear to show, as confirmed in a Department for Communities and Local Government consultation, that the money for free education for disadvantaged two year-olds is being taken from existing early intervention budgets. What is more, the Government plan to merge this fund into the dedicated schools grant, which is itself being cut. This is at odds with the statement of the noble Baroness, Lady Garden, in response to a question on this issue from my noble friend Lady Worthington in a debate on 11 October. Can the Minister explain which is telling the truth—the DoE or DCLG? Why is the early intervention grant being abolished just two years after being created? Which department will have responsibility for early intervention in the future now that DCLG is the funding department?
In addition, during Questions in the Commons on 29 October, Michael Gove stated that early intervention money will continue to go up over the lifetime of this Parliament. However, again this does not appear to be the case. This is similar to the question raised by the noble Lord, Lord Shipley. The figures we have assembled, which have been shared with the Secretary of State, show that by next year early intervention funding will have fallen by over £1 billion, or 38%, and by the end of the Parliament it will have been cut by over 40%. Can the Minister clarify whether this is, indeed, the case and whether the Secretary of State intends to clarify his earlier statement? These may sound like dry statistics but they represent very real cuts in the early years services that we are debating today. That is why even the Conservative leader of the Local Government Association, Merrick Cockell, has described the cuts as “counter-productive”.
Finally, I will pursue the issue of staff professionalism and qualifications, which was raised by several noble Lords. It is quite right that staff need to be trained to provide high-quality care and a stimulating learning environment. As noble Lords have acknowledged this afternoon, Professor Cathy Nutbrown has made a significant contribution to the thinking on this issue. I agree with her that there are far too many qualifications and that they do not necessarily equip students with the right skills. I also agree that we need to drive up minimum standards of qualification for anyone employed in early years provision, across the whole sector.
We have to be concerned about the recent proposals of Elizabeth Truss, now an education Minister, that far from driving up standards and professionalism in early years, the sector should be deregulated and replaced by a mums’ army of volunteers. She has also, as I understand it, proposed that childminders could increase the maximum number of children in their care, from three to five. This would certainly be one way of reducing costs, but it goes against all the knowledge we have acquired on the impact of high-quality, early years care on later development. Will the Minister reassure this House that the Government will not pursue deregulation of this sector and that Professor Nutbrown's recommendations are being actively embraced and pursued?
We have had a great deal of consensus today on the importance of early years education. Our dispute with the coalition is whether it has the political determination, the funding models and, frankly, the joined-up thinking to drive the necessary changes through. So far its record does not display much to cheer about, but I hope that today the Minister is able to give us some better news.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, I will try to give noble Lords something to cheer about. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley said in her excellent opening speech, there is a lot which the coalition Government can be proud of and point to. I will try to make that argument as we go on. I thank my noble friend Lady Walmsley for the thoughtful way in which she framed the debate. She got us off to a great start. We expected her to show her knowledge of the subject, but also her commitment to the interest of children, for whom we all know she is such a champion. As the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, said, there is compete agreement across the House about the core case that my noble friend made: that children’s physical, emotional, language and cognitive development to the age of five are the foundations for the rest of their lives.
While people’s destinies are not set in stone—and I believe that school has the ability to transform children’s lives—those early years clearly influence how children learn, their physical and mental health, their future friendships and relationships. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington set out, this is not least in connection with criminality. I agreed with her points about the economic benefits of effective early intervention—a point also made by the noble Lord, Lord Parekh—and with the case made by my noble friend Lady Tyler of Enfield, about the obvious link to social mobility. We have heard a lot of evidence of the benefits of early years education. As my noble friend Lady Tyler explained, the effective provision of pre-school education study showed very clearly that the benefits persist through school to the end of key stage 2. It certainly found that high-quality early education has a strong impact on the development of disadvantaged children. The OECD found that almost all countries’ 15-year olds who had attended pre-school outperformed those who had not.
We also know that children growing up in workless households tend to do less well at school and are at much greater risk of not being in education, employment or training later on. That is why the Government are committed to doing more to make it worth while for parents to work. Therefore, good quality, affordable childcare also plays an important part in supporting parents to return to, or stay in, the workforce. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, about the broad consensus and I recognise the important steps that the last Government took on this. Significant change and progress have been made in this area, going back some 20 years. The quality of early education provision is improving. In 2010-11 the proportion of early-years-registered providers judged by Ofsted as good or outstanding, for example, increased to 74% from 68% the previous year.
The 2012 early years foundation stage profile results, a measure of children’s development at age five, show continued improvements, especially in early language development. A recent international study of early education systems by the Economist Intelligence Unit ranked the British system as the fourth strongest in the world and noted the progress made in creating universal access for all three and four year-olds. However, as all noble Lords have argued this afternoon, there is a lot more to do and the attainment gap between the lowest achieving 20% of children and their peers is still far too big.
That is why, as my noble friend Lady Walmsley, argued, the coalition Government have made such a priority of early years. We have taken several steps to increase both the availability of places and the quality offered. As we have already heard, the free entitlement for all three and four year-olds has been extended to 15 hours a week, and 96% of three and four year-olds are taking up a free place. From this September, parents have more flexibility over when they can take their entitlement. They might be able to take it earlier or later in the day or over shorter periods, to make it easier to balance their family and work commitments. We have discussed the new entitlement for two year-olds. We are working with local authorities to ensure that they provide clear and transparent information for parents and to encourage them to take up their child’s entitlement.
We have talked about the review carried out on the early years foundation stage by Dame Claire Tickell. As a result, we have published a simpler EYFS that came into force this September. That cuts bureaucracy, allows practitioners to spend more time with children and places a stronger emphasis on learning and development. As the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, reminded us, we have also introduced a new requirement for providers to review children’s progress at age two to help to identify areas where they might need additional support.
One area which we recognise as a crucial foundation for children’s future progress in reading and writing is early language development. The new Early Years Foundation Stage promotes communication and language as a prime area of learning for all children from birth and the new early learning goals in literacy specifically include expectations for children to be using their phonic knowledge to begin to read and write. I take the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about co-ordination. It is up to the Department for Education and the Department of Health to work together. Ultimately, I guess that it is for Ministers to provide the leadership which he rightly says is needed to pull these things together and drive them forward.
On the quality of provision, which has been a recurring theme this afternoon, we are investing in and seeking to encourage the development of the early education and childcare workforce. We have supported graduate training at national level for the early years professional status and new leaders in early years programmes. We now have more than 10,500 EYPSs. I can tell the noble Lord, Lord Parekh, that anti-discriminatory practice is a key part of that EYPS training.
My noble friend Lord Shipley asked about the Government's commitment to the development of graduate-level practitioners; yes, we certainly have that commitment. I hope that we make that clear in our response to the Nutbrown review. We have increased the number of qualified children’s centre leaders through the national professional qualification in integrated centre leadership.
We aim to recruit an additional 4,200 health visitors by 2015. My noble friend Lady Walmsley asked how the Government are doing on that. We are on track to meet our commitment. In 2011-12, three times as many health visitors began training as in the previous year. This year, we will start to see real growth, as the cohort of newly qualified health visitors start to join the frontline.
As I said, we commissioned the Nutbrown review on the next steps, and I was asked specifically about that review by the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch and Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. We intend to respond in full to its recommendations. My honourable friend the Minister for Education and Childcare will do so shortly and will set out how the Government plan to support the development of a better qualified and well led early years workforce. I will follow up the important points raised by my noble friend Lord True about Montessori education, but I can say that officials will be pleased to involve Montessori organisations in this and ensure that we have their input.
My honourable friends Liz Truss, in my department, and Steve Webb, at DWP, are leading the Childcare Commission, to which my noble friend Lady Walmsley referred. It was set up in June. It is considering the availability and costs of childcare.
I take the point made by my noble friend Lord True about over prescription. We want professionals to have the flexibility to exercise their skills and judgment. One of the issues that that commission is looking at is how to encourage new childminders to register. Increasing childminder numbers will give parents more choice between group-based and home-based care, with the additional flexibility that childminders offer. We are looking into what can be learnt from other countries. We have heard a lot of examples this afternoon about practice in other countries and the commission will be looking closely at the lessons we can learn from them. To refer to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, we do want a system that is high quality as well as affordable.
We are in the process of contracting for the new Early Intervention Foundation, recommended by Mr Graham Allen, who has been mentioned frequently this afternoon. The contract will be for two years. It will operate independently of Government to advise commissioners on what works and to spread good practice. That relates to the point made by my noble friend Lord Shipley about the importance of evidence-based intervention.
Work is also under way with health and early years experts and practitioners to look at how we could introduce a fully integrated health and early years review at the age of two. We hope to do that from 2015. That also speaks to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about bringing health and education together into an integrated system.
As noble Lords know, we are also running a trial of parenting classes for parents whose children are nought to five years old. The trials are being carried out in Camden, Middlesbrough and High Peak. Information on take-up is being collected as part of the trials evaluation. A parental participation survey is being collected and an interim evaluation report will be published next spring.
The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, raised the important subject of parenting, as I would have expected him to do. He raised some interesting suggestions and if I may I will follow those up with him later.
A number of noble Lords mentioned funding and particularly the noble Baronesses, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, and Lady Warwick of Undercliffe. Early intervention remains a key priority for the Government and I am glad to have the opportunity to reinforce and restate that commitment.
The changes that we are making to the way we fund local authorities for early intervention are designed to give them maximum flexibility in the way they use funding to provide local services. Local authorities have been asking for this.
We are also using the opportunity of these changes to move funding for the two year-old offer into the dedicated schools grant so that places for two, three and four year-olds are funded through the same grant. In a recent consultation, that was the preferred option.
The total amount that we plan to spend on early intervention over the next two years has not changed as a result of the above. We have not cut funding for early intervention to pay for the extension of the offer of free early education to the 40% most disadvantaged two year-olds. My department received additional funding for this from HM Treasury and this has been added to the existing funding.
The money currently in the early intervention grant will continue to go to local authorities for early intervention activity. In 2013-14, £530-odd million will be added to the dedicated schools grant to fund free early education and childcare for the most disadvantaged two year-olds; £1.7 billion will move to CLG and will be paid to local authorities through the business rates retention scheme; and £150 million, which my noble friend Lord Shipley referred to, will be set aside to support early intervention activities that evidence shows have most impact. If we put those together, it means that Government will be giving local authorities over £2.4 billion for early intervention in 2013-14, rising to over £2.5 billion in 2014-15.
On the points raised by noble Lords about children’s centres, I agree with my noble friend Lady Walmsley and a number of noble Lords on the Benches opposite who spoke about the importance of children’s centres. The Government want to see the retention of a national network of Sure Start children’s centres. They act as a valuable hub for families to access these important services, and I know that they are greatly valued by local communities. As my noble friend Lady Walmsley acknowledged, there has been a small net reduction in children’s centre numbers. The latest figures I have seen, which were provided by local authorities, suggest that there have been 25 outright closures to date, which is less than 1% of all centres. The rest of the reduction is accounted for by local authorities reorganising and merging some of their children’s centres to make efficiency savings, as noble Lords have said. Local authorities have the funding to ensure they can meet their statutory duty to provide sufficient children’s centres to meet local need. They must consult before making significant changes, but fundamentally, the Government’s view is that local authorities should have that funding and the flexibility to decide how to allocate it.
The noble Baroness, Lady Massey, brought a new perspective to the debate by broadening it out and reminding us that whatever problems we have in our country, there are other countries where the problems are even more significant. DfID is engaged in a range of research related to early childhood development. I have been told that DfID programmes are currently supporting 4.5 million girls at primary level and at least 700,000 girls at secondary level, or will be by 2016, so there is work in hand. I was grateful to the noble Baroness for reminding us of a different group of children.
The noble Baroness, Lady Warwick of Undercliffe, asked about early years teaching centres and whether we would share learning from that model. Our view is that they are doing good work. Her suggestion is a good one, and we will actively look to ensure that that learning is shared.
My noble friend Lady Benjamin raised the important matter of toilets for young children at school and in early years. The EYFS requires that all early years providers have to ensure that there are an adequate number of toilets and separate toilets for adults. It also requires that fresh drinking water is available at all times. So far as school level is concerned, new regulations are coming, as the noble Baroness knows very well as she and I have had the chance to discuss them. They set out that washing facilities have to be suitable for pupils. There are also regulations covering the general health, safety and welfare of pupils and a requirement that there should be separate toilets for boys and girls aged eight or over.
My noble friend Lord True asked about the staff/child ratios for independent and state providers. The staff/child ratios in the EYFS apply to all providers, and they vary to take account of the age of the children and the qualifications of staff. He will know better than me that there is a technical difference between independent schools and maintained schools in reception year. I believe that the ratios are broadly the same, but the different wording reflects the different legislation that applies to maintained schools and to independent schools.
I hope I have picked up on the main themes that have been raised. I shall go through, and if there are any specific points, I will follow them up with noble Lords.
Baroness Jones of Whitchurch
I asked a specific question about funding. I am sorry to go on about it, but it is important. I asked about the statement made by Michael Gove in the Commons in October that the early invention grant throughout the life of this Parliament is going to increase. The Minister quoted some figures, but he did not say whether the total is going up or down. I do not know whether he can answer that this afternoon, or whether he could write to me.
Lord Hill of Oareford
I hope I said that the total funding going into early intervention is going up because of the new money that is coming in to pay for the two-year offer. The combination of the two means that it is going up. In this good and simulating debate there has certainly been widespread acceptance about the importance of the early years. I hope that I have managed to show the priority that the coalition Government collectively attach to it and some of the practical steps that we have taken. Although we have made some good progress at what we know is a difficult time financially, there is clearly much more work to do. We will be setting out further areas for action, both in terms of the early years workforce and how to improve the quality of childcare before the end of the year in our response to Nutbrown and also in setting out the findings of our childcare commission. I look forward to discussing those next steps with noble Lords then.