Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the Minister for her reply. We would all agree with some of her opening remarks that there is strong public support for good behaviour in schools. We all know that that helps children to learn. However, I do not accept there is strong public support for this particular measure and like the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, I, too, did some research over the summer with some ordinary parents and I had exactly the same responses as the noble Baroness.

The Minister said that schools must do this in a way which is most appropriate for the pupils with whom they are dealing. Where does it say that? It certainly does not say it in the legislation. It must say it, or something like it, in the guidance. My noble friend carefully went through the other duties that schools have to safeguard children, which have been laid into other statutes. I accept all that. Punishments have to be proportionate and reasonable and travel arrangements have to be considered. They are already there, but the question for a teacher looking at the guidance is: where are they? The guidance needs to have these duties clearly spelt out on the same page where a teacher is being told what they can do under this new law. It needs to be very clear.

I often wonder where this idea came from. My noble friend the Minister has told us that it came from the ASCL. Why does the ASCL have such influence over this Government? The other head teachers’ union does not have the same influence and other ordinary teachers’ unions do not. I am afraid I have a nasty suspicion that this bit of the Bill seeks to enable legislation to catch up with practice, and that some schools are following this practice without giving 24 hours’ notice. I accept that notes in satchels do not always get to parents and that the current requirement for 24 hours’ written notice often does not reach the parent and the parent is not notified. We are asking for something better than that. We are suggesting a way of ensuring that the parent is informed to enable them to make other arrangements for the child to get home safely, if possible. If they are not able to do so, as the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, because they do not have a car and an alternative bus is not available, they can make the school aware that there could be a safeguarding problem if the child is kept in. It is then up to the school under the other duties that my noble friend has outlined to punish the child at a different time.

My noble friend suggested that some unco-operative parents may fail to answer the phone and let the message be recorded on the answerphone. I do not think that these parents have a crystal ball. When the phone rings, they cannot possibly know that it is the school ringing up to say that little Johnny will be kept in after school that day. That is stretching things beyond reality.

I am delighted that my noble friend has accepted that there is scope for strengthening the guidance. I was very pleased to hear that. She made it very clear on the record from the Dispatch Box that teachers should not do anything that compromises the safeguarding of the child. That gives me comfort. If we can work together to ensure that that is made crystal clear in the guidance, I will not feel that I need to return to this at a later stage. Can my noble friend nod and affirm that we can do that work and get the guidance to say something of that nature? It is vital that we help teachers to make good decisions about when to use this weapon in their armoury.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

Before the noble Baroness concludes, will she also reflect that essentially what we are setting in place is a two-tier style of punishment? If you think of it from the teacher’s point of view, what is underpinning this is that a detention on the same day as the crime that has been committed is more effective because it is closer in time to that crime. We will now have schools with two groups of pupils—those pupils who are eligible to receive that punishment and those who are not.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I apologise to the noble Baroness but I am double tasking as a government spokesman and a Whip today. The rules at Report state that a noble Lord may not come back after the Minister has spoken.