Schools that Work for Everyone Consultation

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Monday 14th May 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords—

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Agnew of Oulton]

I was just going to finish my answer to the noble Lord, Lord Storey, on his question about capital. To put the £50 million sum in perspective, we are spending over £1 billion a year on basic-need increases across the country. I am not saying it is a trivial sum but I do not want people to think that we are literally raiding the pot for ordinary schools. Against that also, the capital allocation for schools in this spending round is £23.5 billion.

Schools: Local Oversight

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Monday 28th July 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that the previous Secretary of State for Education has been a hero in this field in introducing and carrying out policies that have greatly enhanced educational opportunities for children throughout the country?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with the noble Baroness’s comments. He is the first Secretary of State for many years, I think, to stop the decline in school standards. His changes, which are dramatic, will take years to have effect, but we are already seeing quite significant early signs of the positive nature of their effect.

Schools: Expenditure Per Pupil

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As the noble Baroness said to me recently, I was not around, but I think our record on this is rather better than that of the party opposite. Indeed, we now have a very strong presumption that schools cannot sell off their sports facilities unless they are replacing them with equivalent ones. We are very keen to see all new schools have sports facilities. Where we are building schools in confined spaces, which we often are, we have used artificial turf or maybe sports facilities on the roof. We consistently now use games such as table tennis and basketball, which can be played by many pupils in confined spaces.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes (Con)]

My Lords, does the 7% that my noble friend cited as being high achievers include those children in this country who have the finest free education in the world at our remaining grammar schools?

[Lord Nash]

There is no doubt that our grammar schools provide an extremely good education. It is an interesting fact that, whereas 7% of the population get 50% of the top jobs, the grammar schools, which educate about 4.5% of the population, get more than 20% of the top jobs. This means that 90% of the population are getting into under 30% of the top jobs. It is that kind of inequality, particularly for poorer pupils, that this Government are particularly determined to improve.

Education: Curriculum, Exam and Accountability Reform

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords—

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords—

[Lord Clinton-Davis]

My Lords, it should be the Cross Benches.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

As I said earlier, we have listened to the consultation and have adapted our proposals accordingly. We have many changes to make to the English education system to render it internationally competitive, and it seems odd to me that when we actually listen and make some changes to one of our proposals, we get criticised.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

My Lords, I would be grateful to my noble friend if he could elucidate on something that appals me, which is the return of coursework, unless it is divided where it would be appropriate; for example, in engineering and subjects of that sort rather than in the academic sphere.

[Lord Nash]

I can assure the noble Baroness that her concerns will not be founded.

Schools: League Tables

Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes Excerpts

Monday 10th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I accept fully the force of that point, and one of the changes that we are keen to make with our new floor standards is to measure both attainment and progression. The previous floor standards had only an attainment measure and we are planning to introduce a progression measure. I accept the force of that entirely. To go back to the previous point, it is clear that children come in all shapes and sizes, and one needs to try to have measures that reflect what a school does to bring out the best in those children, regardless of where they start from.

[Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes]

Is my noble friend aware that many years ago I worked for the Inner London Education Authority in Hackney, dealing only with children receiving free meals? There was by no means any link between the fact that they received free school meals and their educational ability, and it would be a great mistake to use that as a divining rod of what the results should be.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with that point. On the back of the Question I looked at precisely that area, to try to correlate schools with the number of free-school-meal pupils and the results. A quick look bore out the point made by my noble friend. Mossbourne Academy has 54 per cent of its pupils on free school meals and 72 per cent of those pupils get five A to Cs including English, maths and science.