Children and Families Bill

Debate between Baroness Morris of Yardley and Countess of Mar

Monday 28th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I add my support to the amendments tabled by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lady Jones. I do not want to go over the points again as we are trying to move quickly, but it may be a case of weight of Members as everybody is agreeing with everybody at the moment, and it seems that most of the Committee has spoken against the Minister. To add to the number of voices, I want to raise two or three points that have not come out.

My noble friend Lady Jones said that these are amendments about children who are temporarily unable to attend school. Those children’s needs have not been addressed by either Government through legislation. There is widespread support for the Bill generally, as it deals with some of the most vulnerable children in our society. We are all on side on this, but for this group of children who are temporarily unable to attend school, there is no underpinning in legislation to help them. That is a problem. Even if the essence of the content of the amendments is unsuitable, the Minister needs to put something forward. If we do not do that in this legislation it will not happen, and the problems we have been talking about will continue.

We spend an awful lot of time trying to get children who do not want to go to school back into school. We take their parents to court. We have welfare officers who chase them. We bring them in and have mentoring, and so on. But here we have a bunch of children who want to go to school but cannot go for reasons of their mental health, bullying or whatever. We should think about that. If we were to put as much effort into children who want to go to school, but cannot do so temporarily, as we do with those who do not want to go to school, we would probably have a stronger education system. It is that sort of area that is missing. Anyone who has ever done any teaching will know that if a child has been away, it is almost impossible to help them catch up when they come back. The impact is not just on their learning but on the learning of the rest of the class. If we address this issue, we will be meeting the needs of vulnerable people.

I add my support to the Red Balloon argument. I, too, had the privilege of visiting a Red Balloon school in Cambridge. I went not as an enthusiast of online learning as I, too, thought that education was about mixing with children socially. An obvious point that I missed was raised. For some children who are temporarily out of school, it is the way to get back. If we can get children learning online, where they do not have to face other young people and adults, it is a stepping stone to getting back. Finally, whether we like it or not, there is an incentive in the system for schools not to purchase provision outside their own school. A statement for children who have special educational needs mitigates that incentive in the system for the school not to look to resources outside itself. For this group of children, the incentive is still there for the schools to handle it themselves. We need a bit of help on behalf of these children so that we incentivise, make possible or demand that resources outside the school can assist for what may be no more than a week or a month. If it is only for a week or a month, and the children continue to learn, it could do their future education a power of good.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, briefly, I want to clear up a misconception that both noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Brinton, seem to have. Online and joined-up learning is available to schools because we have it for children with ME. I shall speak about it more on my amendment, but I want the Committee to know that local authorities can provide it.

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[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I, too, support the two amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Patel, and the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and I do so for one reason in particular. There is a real danger in the whole Bill that, by necessity—and I have no problem with this; it is what the Bill is about—we will be talking about structures, obligations and demands on people, and about trying to get the system right. We have always failed to do that in the past through successive pieces of legislation. The system does not quite work. There is a danger of forgetting that what will ultimately make a difference is the teaching once the system does work.

In terms of mainstream schools, I have always been a big advocate of talking more about pedagogy than about structures, because that is what will make the difference. We never quite get to that with special needs children because we always revisit the structures, the obligations and the legal framework. What I like about both the amendments is that they are about what happens when the structure works in terms of the quality of teaching and the learning experiences of the children who would access their education through these provisions.

I do not like the phrase “blended learning”. I am not familiar with it and it took me a long time to work out what it was. I had a few ideas, none of which was anywhere near the truth. Therefore, perhaps the wording is not quite right but the kernel and the elements of it are right—it is about what happens in the classroom once the system is working. It would be a shame to let this bit of the legislation go by without having a good debate on that to ensure that we give really clear signals that what we care about for children with special needs is not just that the structure works for them but that the quality of the teaching is appropriate and meets their needs.

On blended learning and online learning, we have not yet gained what we could regarding advances in technology and education. We have done so in higher education and further education but in schools we are lagging behind. For a long time, I have thought that the group that can most benefit from this are children with special educational needs, because of the technology and because of the need that there sometimes is to learn in more than one place.

These are two really good amendments. They put us into a different place when we come to talk about the education of special educational needs children. I hope that the Minister will reflect on them and perhaps discuss how the Government might take them forward.

[The Countess of Mar]

Perhaps I can point the noble Baroness to my Amendment 218, which has a definition of blended learning.