Disabled Students

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Addington

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for tabling this Question for Short Debate and for raising a number of crucial issues about the lack of continuity as young disabled people progress through the education system and into the world of work. I am also grateful to him for prompting me to revisit some of the detailed work that we did on the Children and Families Bill and look again at its progress towards implementation. When I looked back at the Bill, I was reassured to see that it came out of our scrutiny process in much better shape, and with more clarity about rights and responsibilities, than when we started. In that case, it was a job well done. I agree with the noble Lord that if we get the implementation right, it will turn out to be a transformative Bill and make a big difference to the lives of many young people with disabilities and special educational needs for many years to come. The challenge for us at this stage is about implementation.

The theme quite rightly established in the Bill was the need to be proactive. There is the need to have joined-up provision and the need for agencies to talk to each other and take joint responsibility for services. This was encapsulated in the notion of the education, health and care plans. It would be interesting to have an update on the progress being made to establish these local joint mechanisms, which are needed to make the care plans a reality. Perhaps the Minister could update us about what is being put in place to monitor the rollout of the Act to ensure that it becomes a reality on the ground and, in particular, to look at what local authorities are doing to fulfil their obligations in this regard.

In the mean time, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, has identified some rather glaring gaps in our new model of information-sharing and joint working. It was interesting that in the initial response to the consultation on the code of practice, which we received a copy of and which was in the Library pack, the FE sector said that it was rather in the dark as to how the plans would affect it. I am not totally surprised about that because during the course of the Bill, I did not really get the sense that it was engaged in the debate or really understood what the implications for that sector would be. It is helpful that the code has now been redrafted to spell out the FE sector’s statutory duties more clearly. For example, there are the reciprocal duties to co-operate with local authorities on arrangements for all young people with SEN; to admit a young person if the institution is named in the education, health and care plan; and to provide the right support for students with SEN disabilities.

The list of types of support which should be provided and the access to funds are also spelt out. However, underpinning the code there is also an expectation that local authorities will provide top-up funding. It is clear that there is a potential pinch point for students caught in the middle of these funding negotiations. As all noble Lords will know, local authority funding is in a particular crisis at the moment. Can the Minister explain what rights young people have to be provided with that funding to ensure that they have the right facilities when they go into college and can make their college years a success?

The code also makes it clear that colleges should be involved in transition planning between school and college to ensure a successful transition into college life. However, underpinning that again, what guarantees do young people have that the assessments of their needs that were made during their school education will be carried automatically into their time at college? What is to stop an FE college asking for new assessments to be made—trying, if you like, to delay the inevitable or to put off its responsibilities? In addition, there is also all the extra bureaucracy and resources involved and, obviously, the extra upset that will be caused to young people, who feel that the original assessment that was made about them is now being challenged. Where, then, is that reassurance of continuity which was at the heart of the Act and can we be assured that that will follow through in the way the FE sector receives students?

Meanwhile, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, quite rightly raised concerns around the changes to the disabled students’ allowance that were recently announced by the Universities Minister. That announcement goes completely against the spirit and intent of the Children and Families Act. By any measure, it is a blatant cost-cutting exercise because, as we know, it has been judged that it will result in potential cuts to DSA funding in the region of about 60%. One can see why it is attractive to the department at this stage. As a result, only those students with complex disabilities will receive support. Many students will lose access to vital equipment which helps with their day-to-day learning and will lose vital specialist support. I do not claim to understand completely all the technical challenges which the noble Lord raised this evening. They made sense when he was explaining it but I would not be able to repeat it all.

[Lord Addington]

If they made sense only when I was explaining them, I have failed.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

As I said, the noble Lord explained it very well and it made sense, but I obviously have a lot more to learn about the technical facilities that are out there and about how they can be embraced by people with disabilities. However, it is clear that unless the funding is there and the DSA takes account of those up-to-date technologies, we will have failed. The noble Lord made the point that students with dyslexia and dyspraxia, for example, are likely to be particularly badly affected. I also accept the point the noble Baroness raised about autism. Both of those areas are sometimes difficult to define.

One of the concerns about this is that students will undoubtedly be put off from applying to higher education, which of course used to be the case in the old days; they never went to higher education because they never felt that the support would be there. There is a danger that they will fall back on less appropriate post-school choices. The problem with that is that, if nothing else, it runs the risk of being even more expensive for the Government to support. We therefore have a challenge to ensure that every child gets the right to have the best education and the best outcomes that they will be able to succeed in.

Can the Minister explain what discussions took place between the Department of Education and BIS before the announcement was made? Does she accept that the cutbacks in DSA funding go against the whole principle of supportive and integrated progression in education for young people with SEN and disabilities? Are we sure that BIS understood all the good work that was done around the Children and Families Bill? Has it got the message and taken it on board in the way that it is beginning to review the DSA?

Finally, the support that young people receive from nought to 25 should mean a smooth transition into the world of work. We worked hard during the passage of the Children and Families Bill to put those mechanisms in place as well. Again, the noble Lord referred to better access to work placements and apprenticeships, on which we spent considerable time. However, since there are now worrying signs that Ministers in BIS have not bought into that agenda, can the Minister reassure us that that active liaison is taking place between the departments to make sure that, not just in the letter but in practice, funding and support will be made available to all young people so that they all have the best opportunities to make the best of their lives and to thrive and succeed at work? I look forward to her response.

Schools: History

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Addington

Thursday 20th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Luke, for initiating this debate. He has raised some challenging questions about the future of history teaching and the need, which he rightly identified, to narrow the knowledge gap between rich and poor so that all children can excel. We have also, thankfully, had a measured and extremely well informed debate today. I did not realise that there were quite so many history teachers in your Lordships’ Chamber but I have certainly found the debate enlightening. I have also very much welcomed the tone in which the debate has taken place. All too often when these subjects are debated they can dissolve into myth and political discourse.

We have also had some passionate contributions about the wider role of history in establishing truth and fact. I particularly commend the exposition from my noble friends Lady Andrews and Lady Bakewell on the wider benefits of a good grounding in history. I also look forward to hearing the response of the noble Lord, Lord Hill, who I understand is also an expert on this subject. I am sure that he will also give a thoughtful and reflective analysis of the problems which we are now confronting.

We all understand the importance of history in helping us to understand progress, the development of our society and our place in the world today. We also recognise the academic and personal skills that flow from learning to analyse and question, and to differentiate between historical fact and fiction. As my noble friend Lord Morgan rightly pointed out, it gives a good intellectual training.

As several noble Lords pointed out and argued persuasively, it also gives us a sense of identity and belonging and creates a memory of a nation. It also sometimes, as the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, pointed out, scandalously writes some of our citizens out of history, and that cannot be tolerated. As politicians we are keenly aware that we need to learn from history and that the two disciplines are closely intertwined. We are also aware that even in the hands of the most careful practitioner history can be subjective and distorted. This is why individual politicians should be wary of interfering in the shape of the syllabus. I am very pleased that Michael Gove enjoyed studying history at school. He obviously enjoyed a particular style of teaching, and I have no doubt that it works well for some people, but this does not justify him recreating his own teaching experience in every school in the country. Surely he should, instead, be drawing upon the best professional advice as to how children learn effectively and the best academic experience of history teachers in the classroom. It may well be that the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Bew, of a national advisory body of historians could provide focus for this.

Several noble Lords have quoted Simon Schama, who is one of the advisers brought in to shape the new syllabus. I understand that he will be working with Andrew Roberts and Niall Ferguson, notable academics in their own right. They have been very vocal in their criticisms of the current teaching of history, so at least that has helped to provoke a debate. However, as my noble friend Lord Davies argued, they have a particular ideological focus, which is raising some concerns among teachers and parents. Particular alarm bells rang for me when I read that Niall Ferguson had created a war games video to teach young people about the Second World War. He described how his two young sons had enjoyed playing it, but that his daughter had shown no interest in playing war games. That is no surprise. I found myself thinking that Michael Gove might have been better advised to ask some women to join his team of advisers. They might have had a better idea of the sorts of issues which would inspire the imagination of young women in learning history.

Nevertheless, on some things the advisers are right. We all are concerned about the fall in take-up of history GCSE. While history remains a statutory part of the curriculum up to the age of 14, the numbers taking the subject beyond this have been reducing, as we have heard, with only 30 per cent of students taking the subject at GCSE in maintained schools. As both Ofsted and the Historical Association have identified, there are a number of reasons for this. First, as the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, rightly pointed out, there is a lack of specialist teaching in schools, leaving many young people with little or no teaching from history graduates trained to teach the subject. Of course, this problem becomes self-perpetuating as the lower numbers taking the subject to A-level and beyond affect the future supply of qualified teachers.

Secondly, there has been a reduction in the time allocated to the subject as the curriculum is squeezed with other priorities or history is combined into a more general humanities course in which the specifics of the discipline can be lost. Thirdly, there are restrictions placed on the subjects that some young people are able to study at GCSE, with history not being an option, or only available if other humanities are dropped. Finally, there are concerns about the inconsistency of exam boards regarding marking, course materials and the criteria for assessment, which puts some students off. So there are undoubtedly a number of structural problems with the curriculum offer which militate against a large uptake of history at GCSE. Incidentally, I am not sure that these problems will be solved by the introduction of the English baccalaureate, which specifies that only one humanities subject should be part of the award.

This issue of the time available to teach particular subjects is more fundamental than might at first appear. It may be that the previous Government allowed the curriculum to become too crowded, but there is always pressure, as we have heard, to add new and justifiable subjects to the list. Conversely, it is rare for anybody to make a case for a subject to be dropped from the curriculum; and just as that applies to the curriculum as a whole, it also applies with individual subjects. I have listened carefully today to the many persuasive contributions on what should be included in the history syllabus, and it would be easy to agree with everyone. Issues raised have included the significance of the French Revolution, the origins of the slave trade, our links with Afghanistan, the history of our relations with the Middle East; the need to understand people’s history, social history, local history, the history of the four UK nations, the history of English literature and art; the development of science and technology and the history of multiculturalism, to touch on just a few. I endorse all of those. They all have a legitimate place in the curriculum. However, we also need to be realistic about what can be achieved in, say, two hours a week up to year nine and maybe three hours a week at GCSE over a 38-week academic year. It is simply not possible to have both the breadth and the depth that we might all desire.

This dichotomy has led to one of the central failings in the teaching of history, which is identified by Ofsted and on which we can probably all agree. It reported that pupils were being let down by a lack of chronological understanding of the subject. In particular, it reported that pupils at primary schools,

“knew about particular events, characters and periods but did not have an overview. Their chronological understanding was often underdeveloped and so they found it difficult to link developments together”.

I very much support the idea that a stronger strand of chronology should underpin the history syllabus, but this is very different from the Secretary of State’s apparent mission to return to learning dates by rote. At a time when our challenge is to excite pupils and capture their imagination about the past, there would be nothing more dull and uninspiring than to force feed them with dates of wars and of births and deaths of kings and queens.

It is an accepted fact among most educationalists that individual children have different techniques for learning and remembering. The real skill of a classroom teacher is to teach in such a way that every child can get the maximum benefit from the lesson. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, pointed out, the current history syllabus meets many of the concerns that have been raised today. The noble Lord, Lord Cormack, disagreed, but this matter can easily be resolved by looking at the facts. The Ofsted report was much more positive about the current history provision than we have been led to believe by some commentators. It is an area in which myths have been flourishing. Just as it is not possible to avoid being deported by owning a cat, it is equally not true that Henry VIII and Hitler are the only individuals studied in the syllabus. In fact, as we have heard, the syllabus is littered with leaders, explorers, inventors and dissenters. As the noble Lord, Lord Addington, rightly pointed out, on any named subject at any time, we always believe that it was taught better in the past and are nostalgic for the way that we were taught it at school.

[Lord Addington]

I am not nostalgic for the way that I was taught history.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Perhaps many of the noble Lord’s colleagues remain so. However, we need to scrutinise objectively what is happening in the classroom. In its report earlier this year, History for All, Ofsted praised the teaching at key stage 2, describing pupils as having a,

“detailed knowledge derived from well-taught studies of individual topics”;

while at secondary level it described how,

“effective teaching by well-qualified and highly competent teachers enabled the majority of students to develop knowledge and understanding in depth”.

It went on to identify that students displayed,

“a healthy respect for historical evidence”,

and had the skills to apply critical judgment to support their analysis. Throughout the Ofsted report the skills of the specialist history teachers who knew their subjects well and were able to inspire their pupils were a common theme. Surely we should value and celebrate the contribution of these teachers rather than alarm them with talk of further upheaval.

In conclusion, I hope that the Minister agrees with me that there is a need, first, to tackle the structural reasons why history teaching is in decline and is fighting for space in the school week. Secondly, we need to look again at how the syllabus can be adjusted to allow the chronology and sweep of history to be better understood. Thirdly, we need to engage with history teachers, value what they achieve and listen to their ideas for reform. Politicians should refrain from meddling in an educational agenda fraught with ideological divides, and should perhaps also recruit some women to advise on the really significant events in history and how they might be taught. Then we might inspire a new generation of young people to study history, develop the skills of analysis and apply the lessons learnt so that they can better interpret their lives today.