Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Storey

Monday 11th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

Can I come back briefly on that? The noble Earl has underlined the point we were making: addressing these issues requires specialist teachers with proper guidance. I agree that you cannot pigeonhole young people and say that just because you are attracted at one moment in your life to someone of the same or different sex, then you are that for life. People have complex emotional experiences and they need to find the terminology to make sense of the journey they are going on. It is all very complicated, but that is why you need really well trained teachers who can explain this. The alternative of pigeonholing in the way the noble Earl has described makes young people feel very confused. They do not have any understanding of the language to express what they are feeling, or they do not think anyone will listen to or respect them if they admit it, or they think they will be bullied. A way has to be found to put all these issues on the table so that people can feel confident about their sexuality, whichever route it will finally takes them on.

[Lord Storey]

First, I welcome the very clever amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey. Sometimes we have to remember the journey we have come on and how we have created some of these problems ourselves. We had a national curriculum with core and foundation subjects which was, if you like, the bible of schooling. At the time it was very progressive and a great deal of thought went into it. There might have been disagreements about what the subjects should be, but it laid down clearly what every pupil would be taught. It was easy for trainers to train teachers because they knew what the national curriculum was.

As the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, knows, the legislation laid down clearly that every school should have a daily collective act of worship. That does not happen in schools any more, although it is still the law of the land. Ofsted, when it reports, has concerns about how schools try to get round it by having a quick prayer in the classroom or whatever. So that was covered, and inspectors came to schools knowing what they were inspecting. It was not just a very narrow definition of inspections. They would look at the whole ethos of a school, and in their reports would actually use the phrase—mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack—“feel the ethos”. They would shadow a pupil for a whole day to see their experience in the school. Then as a society we thought, “Hang on a second, we are being too prescriptive here. We need to let schools be free and decide what they want to do. Perhaps the national curriculum is a bit too much for them; perhaps the type of school is all a bit too organised and bureaucratic”.

The previous Government went down the route of academies, particularly for schools that were failing pupils. Academies had slimmed-down curriculums where they did not have to teach the national curriculum so they did not have to do some things which they did not think important, whether that was PSHE or sex and relationship education or whatever. We have built on that tradition and, as political parties have coalesced round it, we have said that we want a slimmed-down curriculum. There is a lot of merit in that because in the past more of society’s concerns have been pushed on to schools, which could not cope. We now have a slimmed-down curriculum so that schools can breathe and build on their strengths. Certain schools, such as free schools or academies, do not have to follow it. What is more, we will move to being more flexible on who can teach.

We have got to a situation with the national curriculum where it is not actually a national curriculum. It does not have to be taught in Scotland and Wales, in academies or free schools. It is not a curriculum for all, so I do not know why we still use that phrase. However, we are now realising that children have a right to learn and teachers have a right to teach. Pupils have a right to be respected and understood. We suddenly realise that some of the pillars of our educational establishments are in danger of being taken away or need to be developed again.

The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, was absolutely right to say that it is not just about looking at what needs to be taught, it is how you teach it and the quality of the people who teach it. I can tell noble Lords from bitter experience that there are hundreds of schools that proudly say in the school prospectus that they teach PSHE. You go in and it is a tick-box exercise; they do not teach it. The same is true of sex and relationship education. We have got to realise that. It is all very well sitting in Committee and saying, “This is what we believe in; this is what we want”. It will not change unless we change the foundations of how things happen.

I say to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, that I do not know what has gone wrong here. I had always thought that schools produce a school prospectus that sets out the aims and values of the school and states clearly what it does. I remember my vision and the phrase we used. We said that we wanted to, “Ignite the imagination of pupils”. We listed everything we did in the school, and why we have lost that, I do not know. Parents should be able to look through a school prospectus and see exactly what the school is doing and how it is done.

This debate is absolutely fascinating and I will make just one other point. When I first started teaching we had sex education. We followed the BBC “Merry-Go-Round” radio and television programmes and we starting teaching it at the age of seven. If you leave it until children are aged 11 and 12, it becomes a bit of a joke. They get embarrassed and giggle, but if you do it when they are six and seven, it becomes a natural progression. I hope that we realise in our deliberations, and in how we build on this debate, that other fundamentals have to be put in place as well.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Storey

Wednesday 6th November 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey]

My very first Oral Question was on dyslexia. I have raised the issue on a number of occasions and the Government’s response has always been positive in the sense that they say they have made more money available to universities for courses that they run. It seems very simple and yet very important, first, to ensure that all teachers—not just some—have an understanding of special educational needs and how to identify problems. To have early intervention, you have to be able to identify the problem, otherwise it does not work. Where a classroom teacher sees an issue, they need to be able to understand it and then refer it to the SENCO. The best way of doing that is through training our teachers. It is almost a no-brainer: it is very simple and easy to do and lots of universities and training institutions currently do it. If some do it, why can all not do it?

The second issue, as has been pointed out, is something that we have already put in the code of conduct, where it is very clearly spelled out. We must congratulate the Government on taking the next step and saying that not only should SENCOs be qualified teachers but that, furthermore, newly appointed SENCOs should have the relevant qualification. That is very important—it was not mandatory before and now it is. They are the people who can then deal with all the other issues we have talked about. I would take it a step further and say that existing SENCOs, who are not newly appointed to the SENCO role but may have been in post for several years, should also have to obtain this qualification. They might be doing it for the next 20 years, so should also have that qualification. We should perhaps give them a period of several years’ latitude to take the qualification, but we want to see a situation where teachers, through their training, know the issues and where there is a qualified person in every school to deal with these issues. That way, the excellent work that is suggested in the code of practice will actually happen, because there are people who know what they are talking about and know what to do.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I will comment briefly on the amendments and support the noble Lord, Lord Addington, and other noble Lords who have spoken this afternoon. As ever, the noble Lord, Lord Addington, made a very powerful case for quality teaching to identify children with dyslexia and all other specific learning difficulties. It is important that we broaden it and do not just concentrate on the—very important—needs of children with dyslexia.

In earlier debates on the Bill, and again this afternoon, we have stressed the importance of earlier intervention. The noble Lord, Lord Storey, has just done that again. It is important that we identify children at the earliest opportunity so that we can give them the support they need to maximise the opportunities that their education can give them. These amendments clearly build on that theme. However, for early intervention to take place consistently, all teachers should be trained in the technique of spotting where it might be necessary. They need to be aware of the range of support mechanisms that are effective and can make a difference. This cannot be left to chance or to some teachers developing a personal interest in SEN, which is, all too often, what happens at the moment.

For each teacher who is unaware, or fails to act, another child’s life chances are blighted. We very much agree with the mandatory module in teacher training. Leaving it to individual schools to provide the knowledge and skills for teaching staff will leave it too late, and we believe it will result in piecemeal provision if we proceed on that basis. Sorting this provision out is crucial to the success of all other aspects of the Bill when it comes to SEN. If we do not get teacher training right, all the other aspects of support that we are talking about here will fall at the very first hurdle.

We also agree with the proposal that the SEN co-ordinator should be a qualified teacher who has been trained in SEN and specific learning difficulties, and we were pleased that the Minister has now acknowledged that the co-ordinator should be a qualified teacher. These high-level skills are crucial to ensure that the school properly focuses attention on the needs of specific groups of pupils, as specified in the new Ofsted framework. It is an interesting development that, with the Government’s new-found faith in unqualified teachers, special educational needs co-ordinators will be the only posts in a school required to be qualified teachers, but I slightly digress.

This leads to another issue, which is that if the Minister agrees with the amendments with regard to teacher training modules and the status of school SENCOs, we are faced with a considerable knowledge deficit among existing teachers, both qualified and unqualified. What further steps do the Government intend to take to ensure that training for existing teachers and, indeed, existing SENCOs can meet our expectation of early intervention and action? How can we be confident that their knowledge of the latest physical and technical equipment is kept up to date if we are focusing just on newly qualified teachers and new training for SEN teachers? I am echoing the points made by other noble Lords, and I hope that the Minister will be able to address the issues.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Storey

Wednesday 30th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, first, I make a general point. The notion or the policy of a local offer is hugely important as, for the first time, parents and families will know what is available and it will be clear, concise and jargon-free. I have sympathy with most of the amendments that have been tabled but if we read the code of conduct it makes it clear what should happen. What is the local offer? It says clearly in the code of conduct that it must include both local provision and provision outside that particular area, given what is available in other areas. It refers to how it has to be clear, comprehensive and accessible and to engaging parents, children and young people. Hallelujah! It says that it should be easy to understand, and so on. So when the Bill is linked to the code of conduct, many of our concerns are dealt with there. Some word changes in the code would perhaps help it in some way. However, I am very much reassured, since in the code “should” is often replaced by “must”.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Low, for introducing his amendments, to which we have added our names. I speak in support of the amendments and of other noble Lords who have spoken in the debate.

We are all in our own way trying to address one of the fundamental concerns about the impact of Part 3 of the Bill. As a number of noble Lords have said, of course we welcome the principle of a published local offer—it has been widely welcomed by many in the sector—but our concern is what the local offer will mean in practice and what certainty of provision will underpin it. Like many other noble Lords, we feel that there is an urgent need to clarify this to avoid it becoming a wish list of the unobtainable.

In essence, there should be a legal duty on local authorities to provide what is set out in the local offer. As the noble Lord, Lord Low, made clear in moving the amendment, the solution could be relatively simple. Subsection (1) currently states that the local authority must publish information about the provision which it “expects to be available”; our amendment would simply switch that from “expects to be” to “is”. As I say, it is a simple solution. However, it is important because making that change will give those people who are trying to operate in this sector, under these rules, the reassurance that they need.

The document is intended to give parents, children and young people clear information about the local services and support available to them. Of course we welcome giving parents more information, but clarity and accountability are key to this information being effective. The local offer should be a document on which parents can rely and for which the local authority can be held accountable. However, how can we ensure accountability when the statement is one of expectation and ambition?

We also want to ensure minimum standards for the local offer, irrespective of where people live. We will return to that issue in a later debate today.

When this was discussed in the Commons the Minister said that the word “expects” reflects ambition rather than weakness. He said that the local offer will make it clear how parents and young people can complain or appeal if they are unhappy with any of the provisions set out in it so that the matter can be taken up with the service provider concerned. This seems a strange way to go about it. Why rely on an effective appeals system when we should be getting the provision right in the first place? This is particularly so when you consider how difficult it is for people to bring forward an appeal. You need to look only at the recent SEND tribunal statistics to realise some of the difficulties that are being experienced in this regard.

In addition, there is a worrying reliance on the detail of the arrangements to be prescribed in regulation and in the code of practice, which again makes it difficult to challenge. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, that the draft code of practice repeats the get-out clause for local authorities of publishing what they expect to be available. So there is a flaw in the argument about where the information should be held and accessed.

As my noble friend Lady Wilkins said, there is an understandable concern across the sector that at a time of considerable pressure on local authority budgets, with children’s services already being cut back, parents will have no control over the services in the local offer being withdrawn in the future.

I have listened carefully to the issues around personal budgets raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, and I have a great deal of sympathy with the points that she raises. Our Amendment 180, which we will debate later in the Bill, will tackle these issues in a different way. We are trying to ensure that, rather than rushing into a new regime of personal budgets, with the potential difficulties that the noble Baroness identified, we take time to learn from the pathfinder experience before implementing that section of the Bill. We have to get this right.

We think these amendments are essential to making the local offer a meaningful, substantial service that would genuinely be welcomed by service users. I hope that the Minister will be prepared to reconsider his position on this basis.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Storey

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, this amendment would require teachers in all state schools to be qualified. Specifically, it will remove the ability for teachers in free schools not to be qualified. This country has great teachers. Under the previous Government, Ofsted said that we had the “best generation ever”—a proud achievement meaning the best quality teaching for our children. This Government talk about standards and the importance of teaching. The Secretary of State says that the importance of teaching cannot be overstated, while in the foreword to the schools White Paper, the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister say that,

“no education system can be better than the quality of its teachers”.

I agree with that but it is difficult to see how the Government’s actions, which would allow teachers in free schools to be unqualified—unlike the teachers in any other state school—support these statements. I believe that a core purpose of education reform should be to drive improvements in standards and raise professionalism, but it is difficult to see how this move does either. Can the Minister explain why the Government think that by lessening teacher professionalism in certain schools, standards will increase? What evidence does he have to support this?

We have already discussed in the Grand Committee the abolition of the General Teaching Council for England, a body that was set up to improve standards of teaching and the quality of learning. We have also raised concerns that the Government have done so without putting in place satisfactory arrangements on teacher registration or on maintaining standards of teacher professionalism. We have raised similar concerns about the abolition of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, which among other things had responsibility for the development and maintenance of the professional standards framework for teachers. This is beginning to create a disturbing picture, so does the noble Lord think that these moves, and the move to allow publicly funded teachers to be unqualified, will lead to an increase or a decrease in educational standards?

The model funding agreement for free schools simply indicates that teachers should be “suitably qualified”, and while the model funding agreement for existing academies includes provision that teachers are qualified in line with the expectations of maintained schools, that is not established in statute. Our Amendment 124B will ensure that all schools, including academies and free schools, would be subject to the same legislation as other schools when it comes to qualified teachers. The Secretary of State has said about free schools:

“We want the dynamism that characterises the best independent schools to help drive up standards in the state sector … In that spirit, we will not be setting requirements in relation to qualifications”.—[Official Report, Commons, 15/11/10; col. 623.]

However, where independent schools are high performing what evidence does the Minister have that it is the lack of qualifications that drives up standards rather than the lower teacher-to-pupil ratio, the size of the school or other factors?

In every profession, it is a given that standards are increased by professional qualifications so why are the Government so keen to make an exception of education, and what sort of message does this send to the existing teaching profession about how its skills are valued by this Government? What next—unqualified doctors? If the Government release doctors from the bureaucracy of getting qualified, do we think that would drive up standards in the NHS? If accountants are given the dynamism that the Secretary of State thinks comes from a lack of qualifications, would standards rise in their sector? Would lawyers freed from the shackles of professional qualifications do a better job?

International evidence shows that the status, expertise and professionalism of teachers have an important impact on standards. The OECD report Viewing the United Kingdom School System through the Prism of Pisa states:

“Importantly, many of the high performing countries share a commitment to professionalised teaching, in ways that imply that teachers are on a par with other professions in terms of diagnosis, the application of evidence-based practices, and professional pride”.

On a more populist level, those of us who watched “Jamie’s Dream School” earlier this year will have seen the shocked realisation of some the participants—all of whom were experts in their own field—when they realised that teaching is a highly skilled profession.

It is a mystery where the demand for this policy has come from. It is certainly not from parents. A ComRes poll in April this year found that an overwhelming 89 per cent of adults surveyed preferred their child to be taught by a university graduate who is a qualified teacher, 86 per cent believed that any school receiving public funding should employ only qualified teachers to teach pupils and 82 per cent disagreed with the coalition Government and said that they would not want their child to attend a free school that did not require its teachers to be fully qualified. Parents should be able to choose the type of school that is best for their child, and they should rightly demand high standards of teaching in every state school. They should be secure in the knowledge that all publicly funded schools will employ teachers with relevant training and qualifications.

Finally, I note that there is nothing in the coalition agreement on allowing unqualified teachers in our state-funded schools. It only states:

“We will support Teach First, create Teach Now to build on the Graduate Teacher Programme, and seek other ways to improve the quality of the teaching profession”.

This amendment would ensure that free schools and academies are covered in legislation by the same requirements regarding teacher qualifications as other schools. It is simple and a clear guarantee for parents that whatever school they choose for their child, they will know that qualified teachers will be employed. I hope that noble Lords will feel able to support this position.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with this amendment. My experience as a head teacher for 26 years is that one of the reasons that standards in schools have risen is because of the quality of teachers, the quality of entrants going to university or college and the quality of the qualifications they received. We have to think very carefully about where we are going on this. Are we going to have unqualified people who, for example, have no child protection training, no safeguarding training and no special education training? If we do, we do a disservice to our education sector as a whole.

That is not to say that there are not people in schools who are not fully qualified as teachers. For example, currently teaching assistants with NVQ level 3 can teach, provided that the work is prepared by a teacher. Teaching assistants with a higher level qualification can teach and prepare the work, but there is a teacher at hand. The notion that in free schools you have people with no qualifications teaching children is a retrograde step. It is almost Dickensian. It goes back to the pupil teacher. I hope that the Government will look at this very carefully. I am not opposed to the notion of free schools. In fact, the first free school can be traced back to the 1960s in my home town of Liverpool, but it was opened with qualified teachers.

The other day, I was listening to a programme on Radio 5 about a school where all the people providing the teaching—I cannot use the term “teachers” because they are not qualified—are going to have a military background. I have nothing against that, provided they have qualifications to go with that role. I hope that we will look at this closely and return with some proposals that we can all accept.

Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Jones of Whitchurch and Lord Storey

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I want to pursue an issue that I mentioned in passing in my introduction: that of mobile phones. I refer not to whether a child could be searched but to whether they are carrying a mobile phone in the first place. My noble friend Lord Knight made the point that in the olden days pens could be scurrilous and used inappropriately, so we have to be a bit careful about what we are proscribing here.

I believe I am right in saying that the latest draft guidance on searching states:

“Ministers have already announced their intention to make regulations to add to the list of prohibited items (cigarettes and other tobacco products, pornography, fireworks and specific personal electronic devices (mobile phones and iPods etc))”.

I read that to mean that mobile phones and iPods will be included on the list of prohibited items. I hope that we can have a broader debate on whether that is sensible in the round because, as I said earlier, mobile phones can have a range of functions in a school, not all of which are damaging or unhelpful to the education process.

[Lord Storey]

I want to re-emphasise the importance of parents being aware of the school’s behaviour management policy and I welcome the fact that that duty exists. In that behaviour management policy, it will be an important responsibility of head teachers in schools to indicate the items that pupils should not be carrying on their person.

I also emphasise the dangers of mobile phones in schools—something that I have experienced on a regular basis. The amount of bullying that goes on, and the passing of offensive messages and images, is a real problem no doubt in secondary schools but certainly in primary schools. The fact that schools, parents and pupils—one hopes through the school council—are involved in putting together the behaviour policy and understanding that will be really important for our school system.