Education: Academies

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend that rural schools face certain pressures. We are absolutely determined that no school—particularly rural schools—will be left behind. Our national funding formula will, for the first time, provide many rural schools with more support than it has in the past. We are proposing both a lump sum and a sparsity factor for rural schools. As I said, we will have a fund of £10 million to help them explore the academisation. We will have people working with them and will do all we can to help them. We believe that rural schools working together may be able to afford, for instance, a language teacher, which on their own they would be unable to do. On my noble friend’s second point, we accept that where we have underperformance—wherever it is, whether in the local authority or elsewhere—we must have powers to intervene.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister made it fairly clear that although the element of compulsion has been removed at least from the rhetoric for the time being, it is still the determination of this Government to encourage, by whatever means, all schools to become academies. Building on the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, when he said that a poorly performing multi-academy trust is no better than a poorly performing local authority, can the Minister say why the Government are so bent on creating this new monoculture? A well-performing academy trust is obviously a very fine thing and we all like to see schools succeed, but some local authorities are also succeeding and are creating and supporting schools that are doing well. Should we not celebrate that success as well as the success of academies?

I shall follow on from the question asked by my noble friend on the Front Bench. The issue of autonomy for schools—much vaunted in the progress of this Government’s determination to encourage academies—is surely diluted in multi-academy trusts where there is, of course, one leadership team. The degree of autonomy that then resides with the individual school must by definition be reduced. Is that really what the Minister has in mind?

[Lord Nash]

As I have said, I accept that there are multi-academy trusts that are not performing, but we have ambitions to bring them up to the standards of those that clearly demonstrate that this model works. As far as a monoculture is concerned, we would say that we have much more diversity in the academy trust structure than under a local authority structure, whereby a school is stuck in one local authority because of a geographical accident. An academy can choose to convert, maybe on its own or as part of a small local cluster, or as part of a larger group. Of course, there are high-performing local authorities, and we encourage them to spin out and form multi-academy trusts, which some are discussing at the moment, or to subcontract out their school improvement activities.

As far as autonomy of individual schools is concerned, we have said a lot about how we would expect schools in multi-academy trusts to work together in local clusters. We think that is absolutely essential to their being intimately involved with their community. Ultimately, we are concerned with standards and pupils ahead of everything else.

Schools: Parent Governors

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with that point. Parent governors play an important role in parental opinion, but we really want to engage with parents across a wider front so that we can have a much broader set of parental opinion. That is why we are bringing in these proposals that academies do that.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, building on the point made by the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Harries, the implication of the way that the Government are framing this is that being a parent is somehow not enough to qualify to take part in the governance of a school at which one’s child might be a student. Does the Minister agree that, although many parents have many skills, the primary reason for having them on governing bodies is that they are parents? Would it not be better to allow that to stand as the main reason for having them there?

[Lord Nash]

I agree that we should encourage parents to stand for governing bodies, but we have been very clear over the past few years about focusing governance on skills. It is a skills-based function and that is why we have continually focused on skills. Anyone sitting on a governing body must have those skills, or certainly be able to develop them in relatively short order.

Children: Drugs

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 11th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I do not agree with the noble Lord. A massive number of programmes are available. The FRANK website receives millions of hits, and Public Health England is about to launch its new online resource for young people, Rise Above. I have already referred to ADEPIS and the PSHE Association, and we have many other resources available for teachers.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, given that, as the Minister has just said, teachers are best placed to know the needs of their pupils, what are the Government doing to ensure that teachers are properly informed and supported in helping pupils to deal with such issues?

[Lord Nash]

We constantly point teachers, through our online resources, to all these resources. Of course, a very important part of our initial teacher training—ITT—is safeguarding, which I think is point seven in Teachers’ Standards.

Education: Henley Review

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a good point, and of course we have the Cathedral Primary School in Bristol, a new free school which opened in 2013. I am very hopeful that we will see more of such free schools.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, does the Minister accept that there is a problem—I know that he is not terribly willing to accept it—which is to do with the extent to which teachers in both primary and secondary schools are under pressure to deliver a fixed curriculum that crowds out opportunities for students of all ages to participate in cultural activities of various kinds, despite the fact that quite a wide range of such activities is available for them to participate in? Is he content that this crowding out is what was intended when the cultural plan was developed?

Schools: Special Measures

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree that there are local authorities that are perfectly capable of turning schools around. The sad fact is, though, that quite a few—a depressingly large number—do not appear to have been prepared to use their intervention powers. Since 2006, 42 local authorities have never installed an IEB, and 49, nearly one-third, have never issued a warning notice since 2010.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, to go back to the question from my noble friend Lady Massey, could the Minister explain why this Government are bent on giving more powers to local authorities in a number of very important areas, such as health—I use the so-called northern powerhouse as the most high-profile example—yet appear to think that the same local authorities to which they are prepared to devolve those powers are not fit to run education services?

[Lord Nash]

Local authorities have been judged by Ofsted as being inadequate to run education. We are talking about two totally different things. We believe that we have set up a very effective system for intervening in schools that is working well.

Schools: Free Schools

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

There is no question that that is the case. About half of free schools are in the most deprived areas in the country. In the last five rounds, 93% of them have been in areas where there was a forecast shortage of places and a large number of our top academy sponsors, who are particularly focused on underprivileged children, have entered the free school movement.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, the term “free school” obviously implies freedoms that do not apply to other kinds of school. Can the Minister assure the House that free schools do not have the liberty to withhold from their pupils in any circumstances a range of options in the curriculum that would be expected to be offered to children in other types of school? I think, for example, of subjects such as arts and music.

[Lord Nash]

I assure the noble Baroness that all schools are expected to have a broad and balanced curriculum. Certainly on my visits around free schools I see a very wide curriculum. If the noble Baroness would care to accompany me on a number, I am sure I could satisfy her on this point.

Creative Sector: Educational Provision

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We will continue to use Progress 8 as the main accountability measure. GCSE entries in arts subjects in 2014 are actually up 5% on 2012, while the performing arts have nearly doubled. Of course we want all pupils to study a broad curriculum, and in particular the focus should be on enabling disadvantaged children to have access to a wide range of studies. Ofsted will inspect on this.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister take this opportunity to applaud the work of many arts organisations? I should declare an interest as a member of the boards of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Roundhouse in Camden. The education work delivered not only by the large organisations but also by many smaller ones across the country is of outstanding quality. Does he agree that they find it dispiriting and difficult when they discover that actually there is a diminution of interest in the creative subjects in a number of schools, and that they do not get quite the response they once did to the programmes they offer? Does he think that that is really a good idea?

[Lord Nash]

I do applaud the work of the organisations referred to by the noble Baroness, but the statistics are quite clear. Uptake of GCSE subjects is expanding. All pupils take on average nine GCSEs, and with Progress 8 we hope to encourage pupils to study a broad curriculum with arts subjects.

Schools: Health and Well-being

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Monday 15th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I am not sure that I would go that far, frankly. The best way is to educate children in school as to what is healthy food and allow them to make those choices for themselves. We are making strong movements in this regard.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I am sure that most Members of this House and many other people would accept that providing healthy food in schools, particularly to very young children, is an entirely laudable aim. What information does the Minister have about schools that are struggling to deliver this, both practically and financially, and what help is being offered to those that are having those problems?

[Lord Nash]

We have provided £185 million for cooking facilities for schools and we are training cooks in this area. More schoolchildren have this opportunity. It is reaching 85% of schoolchildren. Not all take it up—not all have been in school on the day in question—but it is receiving comprehensive coverage.

Childcare: Early-years Funding

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I assure the noble Baroness that we will be taking this extremely seriously—that is why we are funding the review—and we will protect essential services.

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, what measures will the Government take in delivering this, on the whole very welcome, initiative to ensure that those who are actually providing the childcare are properly paid and properly managed?

[Lord Nash]

We will have extensive consultation with the sector and discuss the rates to ensure that we strike the right balance between the right rate for the providers and fair value for the taxpayer.

Queen’s Speech

Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness McIntosh of Hudnall (Lab)]

My Lords, I was pleased to see that education had been grouped with culture in today’s debate on the gracious Speech, but I wish that I felt convinced that the Government accepted the need for them to keep equally close company in the development of education policy. That is what I want to talk about before touching briefly on two other matters. Last month, a letter from a head teacher appeared in the i newspaper, which I think would be of particular interest to the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Norwich, who is sadly not in his place—and, indeed, to the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham. I understand that, at this hour in a long debate, the call of the dinner table becomes very insistent, but I am sad that neither of them is here to hear it because it very much goes to the points that they raised. It says:

“As the headteacher of a 1,000-pupil comprehensive school in the West Midlands I have mixed emotions as I look back over the school year.

At Christmas the school choir sang in a hauntingly beautiful carol service in the local church. Following a recent charity week, my pupils presented more than £4,000 to national and local charities. My Year 8 boys have just won the English Schools’ National Under-14 Football Cup. While walking in the Shropshire hills last weekend, I met 20 of my Year 10 pupils who were trekking as part of their Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The mixed emotions I feel are delight and despair: delight that all these activities are what a school is all about, helping pupils become well-balanced young adults able to take their place in society—and despair because nothing I have described to you counts a jot in the school league tables by which all schools are measured”.

That was from a head teacher in the West Midlands.

Those words precisely encapsulate what many of us find so troubling about government attitudes to education over the past five years and about the tone of the gracious Speech in promising further legislation, with its references to “failing and coasting”. The relentless focus on testing, the slow but unmistakable downgrading of arts subjects in the curriculum, the insidious undermining of teachers—my family is full of them, so I see the effects at first hand—all contribute to a good deal of anxiety and despondency in the classroom, in the playground and at the school gate. The determination of many schools to provide, in spite of everything, a creative environment for their students, which I see, for example, when I take part in the Peers in Schools programme, is almost a miracle in the face of a Government apparently bent on draining the joy that is so essential to effective learning out of education.

Polly Toynbee, writing recently in the Guardian—I know she is a leftie, so she will be ignored by a large number of people in this House, but none the less—said:

“Research shows how the arts improve attainment in all subjects: drama improves literacy, music improves maths and early language. The arts make most difference to children from low-income families—those who get arts teaching are three times more likely to get a degree and a job … but the English baccalaureate excludes the arts altogether, leading to a sharp fall in arts subjects, especially in deprived areas. I would bet both Gove and Morgan”—

her nomenclature, not mine—

“would reject any school for their own child that had abandoned arts teaching”.

I leave that one to stick to the wall, as they say.

I want to say a brief word on mental health care. Those of us who have had mental health problems know how frightening and lonely the experience can be. Appropriate and, above all, timely intervention is essential. Parity of esteem was the key mantra of the last Government. I noticed that it was absent from today’s speech from the Front Bench. It is a fine phrase, but the problem is that fine words, as we know, butter no parsnips. I do not know why parsnips, but proverbially they butter no parsnips.

Recruitment and retention of mental health professionals is still a huge challenge. Psychiatric beds, so vital for acute mental health crises, are being closed all over the country, and access to invaluable talking cures, such as cognitive behavioural therapy, is subject to long waits and significant rationing. Most disturbing of all, services for young people are under more pressure than ever, which is particularly worrying when we hear today, for example, that the incidence of anorexia nervosa is rising sharply. Given these realities, will the Minister explain exactly how the Government intend to deliver on the promise in the gracious Speech to improve access to mental health care?

Finally, I shall say a word on the BBC. I was amused to read, immediately after the appointment of the new Secretary of State for Culture, dark threats from some quarters about how he was plotting revenge on the BBC for its partisan coverage of the election. It amused me partly because the right honourable gentleman is an experienced politician and a cultured man and I have no doubt that he will plough his own furrow without assistance from headbangers in the press or elsewhere who see the BBC as an obstacle to their interests. I was also amused because I, too, spent quite a few hours during the election campaign with my pen hovering metaphorically over the green ink bottle ready to rail at the BBC for its partisan coverage of my party. It has often been said, and well said, that if we all feel ill-used it must be getting it pretty much right.

The BBC is not just another broadcaster in a competitive marketplace. It is one of this country’s most significant cultural achievements, and we have quite a few to our name. The original mission to inform, educate and entertain—the words carefully arranged in that order—has, of course, been tested by the passage of time, the evolution of technology and societal change, but it stands up pretty well. The funding model which supports it has been challenged many times but still bears scrutiny when compared with other possibilities.

Over its long history the BBC has, of course, made many mistakes and infuriated many people, but that should neither surprise nor dismay us. However grudgingly, most people acknowledge that, with all its faults, it is a unique feature of our heritage, our future and our currency in the world. The Secretary of State should act as a critical friend, not an asset stripper, as he goes into the charter negotiations. He will not be forgiven if he gets it wrong.