Higher Education Reform

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 5th November 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, it is difficult to be pleased that fees will have to be raised, but I acknowledge the parlous state that HE finds itself in, and I welcome that the Government have taken as much early action as they can to try to make the situation better.

I will put just two points to the Minister. First, can she clarify what I think I just heard in response to a previous question, that for students who are already at university—that is, not becoming first-year students from the start of the next academic year—whether they are charged the increased fees may vary from university to university depending on the contract? If I heard that correctly, when might that be announced, so that we have certainty as to what will happen for the majority of students in September?

Secondly, I very much welcome what the Minister said about looking to do more to widen participation. In the work that she and the department carry out on that, will she have a look at the statistics for students from less advantaged backgrounds who are already at university to see what the dropout rate is? I know that it has been higher than for other groups. One challenge is getting those young people to university, but if they then drop out, we have not achieved a great deal. I would be grateful if she could confirm that that could be part of the considerations.

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

I thank my noble friend and wholly agree with her. It has been a difficult decision to ask students to pay more to safeguard the future of higher education, but I think it was the right decision. On the point about students who are already there, yes, it is the case that the increase in tuition fees will cover students who are already studying. In some ways it is not for the Government to clarify the position. Higher education institutions are autonomous and will need to be clear with their students about the impact on them of the increase in fees. I will correct myself if I am wrong but for most, the assumption would be that the increase in tuition fees will go ahead in the way we have described. My noble friend is right that there is a big differential in those who drop out of university, with more disadvantaged students being more likely to drop out, less likely to continue and less likely to have good outcomes at the end of their time at university. As well as widening access, that is another area where we want to make progress with the sector.

Special Needs Schools

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Monckton, on bringing this topic to our attention and on her speech. I was lucky enough to hear her maiden speech some weeks ago, when she addressed this issue. There is no better advocate for not just speaking about this issue but actually doing something about it, which is quite an important extra. I am grateful that we have had the opportunity to discuss this today. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I hope the Government may provide time, during the department’s consideration of the future of SEN policy, for us to have further debates and make further contributions.

The noble Baroness talked a lot about specialist colleges. They are important, because she is absolutely right that the alternative to that is staying at home. It is not a poor or inadequate school that gets you out of the house. We have let down younger adults with disabilities for many years. It is as though we assume that life stops when they reach the end of compulsory schooling, so I appreciate that point.

However, I want to start on two more positive points. There has been a transformation in special schools over the past 20 to 30 years. It is worth making note of that because it shows that progress can be made. In my lifetime, the law described this group of people as ineducable; that is what it said in the Education Act. Now, when we go to special schools or specialist colleges, we see young boys and girls and young men and women doing what anybody in any school does: working hard, hoping for better things, playing with their friends, sharing things with their teachers and family, and wanting to get on and be part of society. We have made improvements. What has changed most of all is our understanding of what can be achieved. It is society; it is education; it is politicians; it is all of us who have put the lid on the achievements of this group in the past. At least now when we see some excellent special schools and specialist colleges, we see that there can be change, but there is a lot more to be done as well.

There is a second area where I want to point out good things that I have always taken from this sector. When you go into a special school, you try to work out what is different from a mainstream school. To me, it is something like this: the teachers are very well trained in their specialism; they know what they are talking about and are practised in delivering that. When you look around the staff, you see that it is not just teachers but physiotherapists, play leaders and assistants; it is people with a range of professional skills trying to meet the needs of the child. They invariably have close links with parents. Special schools are interesting in that social class does not matter; social class does not choose the children who attend, so you often get socially mixed schools. Each child has a programme tailored to meet their needs, and there are partnerships beyond the school. Teachers who know their subject and can deliver it, working with a range of other professionals so that a range of needs can be met; precious and close links with parents; and working with a community that wants to provide support—that it is a definition of what we should have in every school, special or mainstream.

When I was a Minister in the education department, a lot of the work we did on classroom assistance, extra administrative help for schools and using the school as a location for people with other skills was modelled on the best of special schools, so they have a lot to teach all the other schools in mainstream education.

However, there is no doubt that these are troubled times for the whole SEN sector, and there will be opportunities to discuss that. There are a number of policy challenges in respect of special schools which I ask the Minister to reflect on. First, I welcomed the Prime Minister’s announcement at the Labour Party conference about level 2 apprenticeships—that will help this group—but for all the good that goes on in special schools, the assessment and qualifications framework in which they are asked to work does not meet their needs. I chair the Public Services Committee, which has recently produced a report on the transition from education to work for young people with disabilities. The story is one of doing well in schools and being blocked from thereon in. Part of that is expectations, but a lot of it is the qualifications for which they are encouraged to study not being fit for purpose in moving them on to the next stage of their lives.

I have two more points to make. I have met a lot of people with special needs children who think we ought not to have special schools at all and that the inclusion debate ought to be such that every child’s needs can be met in mainstream community schools. It is not a view I take, but we should acknowledge that that debate across the sector about where all children with special needs are taught is a live one, and we have to work it out. To my mind, the easy decisions are that those with needs that cannot be met in mainstream schools should be in special schools and that if they can be included in mainstream schools and their parents want it, every effort ought to be made to remove any barriers that may exist, and that may be something as little as physical obstacles.

It is the ones in between who are at the borders, where there is no agreement on whether special schools or mainstream schools would be appropriate. That is where the debate is difficult—it is about the numbers of people with EHC plans who are trying to get to special schools, when the authorities think that their needs might be met in mainstream education; that is where the difficulties lie, and where we let down a lot of children. What I am absolutely sure about is that no one should have to want a special school because of a poor mainstream school that they are trying to turn their back on. It should be because the child needs the special school, not because we have no mainstream schools that are catering as well as they can for special needs children.

We have not got this right, and it is not easy. If you look across the 24,000 schools making up our school system, we have a very small number of special schools. Most of them are mainstream schools. We have never been sure what the role of the special schools should be in the whole education system—but all the talent, all the highly qualified teachers and all the experience are in the special schools. What we have always tried to do is to find a way of using their expertise across all schools to benefit all children with special needs. Of all the solutions that we have come up with over the years, whether it be collocating special schools on the same campus as mainstream schools, having units in mainstream schools without specialism or having teachers who move from one school to another, I have seen excellent examples. But nowhere do I see a cohesive and coherent plan about how the offer from special schools sits easily in the whole education system so that we can meet the needs of those who have needs that can be met in special schools and those who do not, as well as the many in between who just want the best of both.

King’s Speech

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Friday 19th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to welcome my noble friend Lady Smith to our Bench and to say how pleased I am that I will be working with her again. It is more years than I would like to count since that last happened, but I am very pleased with the skills and experience she brings with her and optimistic about what she will contribute. I have got to know the Minister sitting next to her, my noble friend Lady Merron, better almost in the Lords than in the Commons. I congratulate her on her appointment and look forward to hearing about the changes that she is going to make.

I want to add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Barran. I feel that I have spent a lot of my life over the last few years debating education with her in this Chamber on our opposite Benches. We have agreed quite a bit but when we have not, I have never doubted the noble Baroness’s commitment to children or their education for a better future. I thank her for the way in which she conducted herself in the role and look forward to further debates. I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Jolly, as well and give my best wishes to her for her future.

This is a huge debate today and it is a huge King’s Speech, so I want to make a few comments on the schools aspect of this work. Two weeks in, I have nothing to complain about yet, so this is very good. I am very used to making speeches criticising Governments, so I am at a bit of a loss as to what to say. By way of transition, I want to welcome some things but ask some questions about what we might expect in future.

It seems to me that the early announcements fall into two groups. One is about trying to deal quickly with the immediate challenges facing schools; the second is to sow some seeds for more substantial change in the future. One of the main points I want to make is that there is a contradiction in describing what is happening in schools at the moment. I worry that there is a feeling within government broadly, and among society, that all is quite well in schools and not much needs to be done. If that is true, they will go to the bottom of the Government’s list of priorities and I do not want that to happen.

I do not think there is a crisis in schools; I think that schools are doing well and are better than they have ever been, partly because there have been 30 years of continuity in pedagogy and policy on the key issues of literacy and numeracy. When I go into schools, they are safe places. Children seem happy and many of them do well, although we are all aware of the gaps. But I am very conscious that the social context in which schools are working means that there is paddling below the surface.

Although children are doing well, there is a price to be paid in the system. That price is being paid by some vulnerable children who are pushed in the wrong direction, and by the workforce, to whom we owe a great deal because they keep the system going. If we are not careful, they will not be able to do that for much longer. I never want to use the language of “schools in crisis”, because I do not believe that is the case. They need attention, resources and ministerial interest, just as much as some of our public services that have been described as being in crisis. I am sure the Minister will appreciate that, and I would welcome some comments. So I welcome breakfast clubs, mental health checks and the 6,500 extra teachers as things that can happen now.

Will the Minister say something about special educational needs and disabilities—on both the immediate action needed, because it is difficult, and sowing seeds for long-term change? I have not heard a great deal yet on how we can support local authorities and schools to deal with the immediate problems of SEND. Some words on that might be welcome.

I want to raise a couple of issues on the seeds that have been sown for long-term change. I very much welcome the curriculum review announced today. My worry is that we have to decide whether we want a big or a little curriculum change. If we say that we just want more arts, creativity and life skills, I cannot see how that fits in to the existing curriculum model.

We also talk about evolution, not revolution. Our politics have never been revolutionary; they have always been evolutionary. But I worry that we will say to teachers, “You have to do art; you have to do this, that and the other”, without fundamentally looking at the curriculum model we have and seeing if that needs to be changed. I hope that the review has permission to say what it thinks needs doing and is not limited by the phrase “evolutionary, not revolutionary”.

My last point is on assessment. If I heard it right—I heard it this morning and have not read it, so I may be wrong—assurances have been given about the future of GCSEs, A-levels and T-levels. I wonder how that can happen when we have not done the curriculum review, because assessment follows curriculum. However, no comparable assurance has been given about BTECs. If we go into this review with a cast-iron guarantee that nothing will happen to T-levels, GCSEs and A-levels, but BTECs are still floating around, we will not solve the assessment problem we face. Maybe some assurances could be given on that.

On the whole, I am very excited about the optimism and energy, and I look forward to working with the team in the future.