Education: Early Years

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 8th November 2012 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Walmsley]

That this House takes note of the importance of early years education.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, many years ago someone described this country as an island standing on coal and surrounded by fish. Nowadays the treasure of our country is our people and our future fortune is our children. That is why the way in which we nurture and teach them, especially in the early years, is so important to their and our economic future. But we must not just talk about economics. One of the greatest human pleasures is to hear a happy child giggle or to see healthy children running about and playing sociably together. How sad, and what human waste, when we see children arrive at school undernourished, dull-eyed and stressed and when we see children from less fortunate countries struggling to stay alive, with bellies swollen from malnutrition. So, while we talk about how to look after our own children, let us not forget those for whom to sit down with a glass of milk and an apple in a well equipped nursery would be unimagined luxury.

I am sure noble Lords are all familiar with the mountains of evidence that proved the long-term benefit in human and economic capital of high-quality early years provision based on a social pedagogy model which integrates educational and social development. It pays back six or sevenfold in cash terms and who knows how much more in human happiness and well-being.

So I would like to start at the very beginning: with parents. Parents are the first educators, and we need to do everything we can to ensure that they are well informed and helped to do the world’s most difficult and important job. None of us would dream of taking on a difficult task without some appropriate training, so there should never be any stigma attached to parenting classes. Earlier this year my honourable friend Sarah Teather, then the Minister of State for Children, announced a pilot in three areas offering free parenting classes for all who wanted them. I wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can tell us how well these classes have been taken up and received by the participants.

Of course, babies are learning every hour of every day, faster than they will ever do again in their lives, and their development proceeds at a most rapid pace until they are three. That is why I believe that what we sometimes call “childcare” is really “early education”, albeit informal education. But they prepare for learning initially through their experience with their principal carers. A child who does not have strong, safe attachment to the principal carer will not be so resilient and able to control his feelings as another child who has been well nurtured. Midwives and health visitors, whose ranks are swelling under this Government, have a key role to play in helping parents who struggle with attachment. Can the Minister say how we are getting on with our target of recruiting an additional 2,500 health visitors?

When young children first enter early years settings, they vary enormously: physically, emotionally and intellectually. Their development may have been impeded because of neglect, ignorance, parental substance abuse or downright cruelty, or it may simply be because of poverty. There is much evidence of the effects of poverty on child development. For example, it has been shown that children from privileged backgrounds hear 23 million more words than those from deprived backgrounds, and this has a profound effect on their communication skills and their ability to learn to read. That is why the Government’s efforts to get families out of poverty through universal credit is so important. An additional £300 million has been secured under universal credit to help with the cost of childcare, and the rules of working tax credit have been changed to remove the 16 hours a week minimum in order to qualify for support with childcare costs. These things will surely help.

However, good quality childcare costs money, so I was delighted recently to receive a letter from the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Nick Clegg, in which he assured us that he is working hard within government to ensure that good quality childcare becomes more affordable for parents, but not at the expense of quality. There are many ways of doing this, and my honourable friend Steve Webb, the Pensions Minister, is working hard with Elizabeth Truss MP in the childcare commission to find the right way. I was very interested in the Resolution Foundation’s recent proposal that after the 15 hours free entitlement, the next 10 hours could be made available at a subsidised rate of £1 per hour. Twenty-five hours care would make it more worthwhile for mothers to work part-time, so I hope the commission is looking seriously at this. Currently the workforce is losing an unnecessary number of talented women because of the cost of childcare.

However, we must not undervalue those dedicated people who work with our children. They need to be highly qualified and properly paid, so more money needs to be found. The report by Cathy Nutbrown on the early years workforce and the current programme to improve the qualifications of that workforce is a very important factor in ensuring our children get the foundations for good life chances. Can my noble friend the Minister say anything about progress in improving the qualifications of the early years workforce?

We know that the best way of getting a family out of poverty is to remove the barriers preventing parents, who wish to, raising their family’s income by going to work, at least for part of the week, but there is much more to it than just providing affordable nursery places. The right to request flexible working is important, as are counselling to help troubled couples stay together so that they can share the load, employers who allow job-sharing, and adequate shared parental leave after the birth of a child. All have their part to play, and Governments have a role in encouraging all these things and legislating where necessary.

However, especially for struggling families, good quality early years care is essential if their children are not to suffer for the rest of their lives. Graham Allen MP outlined in his report Early Intervention: The Next Steps how a child’s development score at just 22 months can serve as an accurate predictor of his educational outcomes when he is 26 years old. Liberal Democrats have always been vocal on the need for high-quality early education, and that is why I was delighted when Sarah Teather, when she was Minister, announced 15 hours of free early years provision for deprived two year-olds. This will take children into a more stimulating social background where they can learn through play with a much wider variety of toys than they have at home. Initially aimed at the most deprived 20% and later to move to 40% of two year-olds, the programme started this September. This is one of the most significant achievements of the Liberal Democrats in the coalition Government, but we do not stop there. Our 2010 manifesto outlined a plan to move to 20 hours free childcare for all children over 18 months as soon as the nation’s finances will allow. This may be an aspiration, but it is a good one because quality early years provision benefits all children, but it benefits the poorest the most.

Of course, the Sure Start children’s centres are one of the key achievements of the previous Government, and I hope that my noble friend the Minister will be able to reassure the House that tales of the demise of these centres are premature. Sure Start centres are a valued resource and, although some local authorities have merged or moved centres, only 18 have been closed outright, despite the austerity under which most authorities work. The great virtue of these centres is their ability to wrap services around the child. I would contend that one of their most important functions is also to engage with parents, because children should be seen as part of families whenever possible. At the very least, early years settings should be ensuring that parents understand how they work with the children, how the child is progressing and how they can continue the work at home. Some of them also have toy libraries and other services such as English classes, help with benefit or housing queries and help to find a job. Some are the location for parenting classes and mother and baby groups. They understand that help for the family is help for the child. I would encourage my Government to continue to support these centres and help them to develop their reach, especially into the hard-to-reach groups. Perhaps my noble friend the Minister can say something about this.

Some of the centres are now concentrating their services on the poorest families and, although I would ideally like to see a universal service, in times of economic austerity this is right. The Government's social mobility strategy—a high priority of Nick Clegg—has data showing that high ability children from lower social backgrounds are overtaken by children of lower ability from higher economic backgrounds between the ages of five and seven unless there is some intervention to ensure that all children fulfil their potential. This is a waste of human capital that we can ill afford.

One of the Liberal Democrat policies to improve social mobility is the pupil premium. This is about to rise to £900 per qualifying pupil per year and, although the accountability of schools as to how they spend this money clearly needs to be fine-tuned, it is already showing results. But it starts at five. I have often found it odd that we have for years spent more on the education of teenagers than we do on young children where the cost-effectiveness of spending has so clearly been shown to be greater. This is a topsy-turvy way of doing things. That is why my party carried a motion at our party conference in September to extend the pupil premium into the early years as soon as resources allow. It is more expensive, because it requires greater professional expertise, to help children disadvantaged by poverty or disability than fully able children from comfortable homes. But if we are not prepared to pay for that expertise, it will not happen. Interestingly, Barnardo's has just published a report called Mind the Gap which shows that the amount of financial uplift available to help disadvantaged children varies substantially at different stages of their educational journey. The biggest gap is exactly where the Liberal Democrats have proposed to provide more funding; that is at ages three and four. How prescient we were—or was it well informed? As Barnardo’s points out, it would be a pity if all the good work done with disadvantaged two year-olds was allowed to slide when they get to three and four. To enable us to get the best out of the policy on two year-olds, we must be consistent and provide for the most disadvantaged three and four year-olds too.

That brings me nicely to the issue of the transition between early years settings and primary schools. One of the most important issues is summer-born children and “school readiness”, as yet an undefined concept. There has been much research about the birthdate effect; for example, Sykes, Bell and Rodeiro in 2009 and Sue Bingham and David Whitbread published this year by TACTYC. The evidence shown by the Government's recent phonics screening check illustrates the problem very simply. In a single year, the percentage of those born in September reaching the “required standard” is 68% and the percentage born the following August reaching that standard is 47%. It would be helpful to have a similar analysis of the early years foundation stage profile, which does compare boys and girls but does not take account of age differences. I put that to my noble friend the Minister as what would be a welcome development.

These children are not stupid. They are just young. Summer-born children are more likely to be identified as having special educational needs than older children in the same class. In many cases this is wrong but it follows them through their school career leading to a poverty of expectation. Sykes et al also showed that summer-born children are not progressing onto certain routes and into certain levels of education. Although those who get through to the highest levels of education do well, fewer of them ever actually get there. This is serious and it means that we need to take a close look at how we can adjust our early education system to mitigate this disadvantage. It may mean having several entry points into school through the year instead of one. It may mean a different approach to teaching and learning in the first few years of primary education, a social pedagogy model rather than a curricular straitjacket. It should certainly mean understanding how children learn through play and having early years qualified specialists in the classroom who know how to guide children at all stages of development. It may mean looking again at the age at which formal education starts. In those countries where children do not start formal schooling until they are six or even seven, the educational attainment results are better than ours. It is clearly worth looking at their model which places equal value on their care, upbringing and learning. What is sure is that formal education should not start too early, whatever the setting.

In ending, I can do no better than describe my aspiration for our children in the mission statement of the British Association for Early Childhood Education. It says:

“Members … actively promote the entitlement of every child to developmentally appropriate early years provision which underpins their emotional, social, physical and cognitive development in order to become learners for life”.

I think that is a splendid aspiration and one which I hope my Government will embrace.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his very full reply and all noble Lords who have taken part in this very wide-ranging debate. We have had everything from brain development, early intervention, the international perspective, parenting and preparation for parenting, to funding issues, the connection with social mobility and well-being, communication skills and the all-important qualifications issue.

If you are given the last word, you are crazy if you do not use it. Here is my last word. I would counsel caution about this concept of school-readiness. Schools must be ready for children and they will only be ready for children when the classrooms are filled with highly qualified early years experts with the freedom to use their professional judgement. That brings me to the issue of assessment and tests. There is no place for summative assessment in the early years. Formative assessment, yes—as long as it is done sensitively and the purpose is to inform the practice of the professionals who work in the early years. But please let us not go back to curricular straitjackets—and certainly not league tables.

Motion agreed.

Education: English Baccalaureate

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 22nd October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I do not accept the basic premise that the Government are concerned only about academic qualifications to the exclusion of all else. I agree with the noble Baroness, and with the party opposite, on the importance of vocational and technical qualifications. One of the very first things that the Government did when coming into office was to commission the Wolf review into vocational qualifications. However, with regard to the EBC, the amount of time that is likely to be taken to teach those core subjects will still leave plenty of time for the important subjects that she mentions, such as art, music or design, which I agree one would want to continue to be taught. I do not think it is a narrowing of the definition of excellence to want to set a higher bar for more children from a whole range of backgrounds, particularly the most disadvantaged, to get good academic qualifications that will get them into further or higher education, apprenticeships or work.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Is the department considering including computer science in the EBacc certificate? I mean real computer science and not just how to use applications.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As my noble friend knows, we are looking at how to ensure that computer science is taught well. A consultation is out at the moment and the precise composition of the EBC is something that I am sure my right honourable friend will continue to reflect on. I will relay my noble friend’s point about the importance of computer science to the Secretary of State—I know it is a point that he shares.

Education: Development of Excellence

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lady Perry on introducing this important debate. I am sure we all want the outcomes she described, but we may not all believe in the same methods to achieve them. To my mind, there are two requirements before an excellent education can be achieved: the first is excellent teachers and the second is eager children who have been prepared through their experiences in the early years to be able to make the most of their education. Notice that I did not say anything about structures, and notice also that I did not mention the idea proposed by Mr James O’Shaughnessy of Policy Exchange, the Prime Minister’s former policy chief, that we should allow for-profit companies to take over schools which only recently were considered satisfactory. There is no place for the profit motive in state schooling during the compulsory years. Money is too tight to siphon some of it out of the classroom and into the dividend cheque. To quote one of my noble friend’s colleagues, “No. No. No”. I hope that the Secretary of State is not tempted to go down that path.

My second requirement is a little more controversial than it might sound. We have heard a lot recently about ensuring that children are school ready. On the contrary, I think we should ensure that schools are ready for children and should take account of research when we are considering how best to help our children benefit from their schooling. Work by Dr David Whitebread and Dr Sue Bingham of the University of Cambridge was published only yesterday by the Association for the Professional Development of Early Years Educators, an organisation dedicated to raising the standards of those who work with very young children in all settings. They brought together various studies to question whether the earlier-is-better approach to early years provision is the best way forward. They have concluded that it is not. I should clarify that they are not against provision for two year-olds. It is the date when formal teaching commences that is in question. For example, in 2007 Suggate et al looked at a large sample of children, some of whom started to learn to read at five and others at seven. They discovered that by the age of 10, those who started at seven had not only caught up but had better comprehension of the text.

Another piece of evidence comes from what we know about summer-born children. We know they are disadvantaged in our system, both academically and socially, in that they are 50% more likely to be diagnosed with special educational needs. Research shows that birth date differences even up quite quickly in countries where children do not start formal learning until they are seven. Surely this indicates the damage that can be done to children who are only four for the majority of their year in the reception class. It is alluring to believe that early reading and early academic success are beneficial, but Kern and Friedman in 2009 discovered that early reading often leads to less life-long educational attainment, worse midlife adjustment and worse mortality. This aligned with the findings of the famous HighScope project.

Subjecting children too early to a lot of direct instruction forces them to use parts of the brain that are immature and this can be damaging. It has also been shown that if children are asked to learn things by rote or repetition, they can do it, but they are using the lower, less sophisticated limbic parts of the brain. Later, when asked to do tasks that need the more complex parts of the cerebral cortex, they have a tendency to use the lower parts instead. We need a social pedagogy model rather than an inflexible, time-limited, curriculum model. Can the Minister assure me that the roll-out of early years provision for two year-olds will take account of this and other research?

Education (Amendment of the Curriculum Requirements for Fourth Key Stage) (England) Order 2012

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Monday 23rd July 2012 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the Minister for that detailed explanation of why the Government are proceeding in this way. I would not argue with Professor Wolf’s recommendation that a blanket one-size-fits-all approach to work-related activities has served its time, as I think she said. I also agree that work-related activities should remain a key priority for schools and colleges, including, I would argue, for those key stage 4 pupils who would benefit. Accepting those conclusions, though, is not an argument for abolishing altogether the statutory duty to provide work-related activity and for absolving schools from that provision. The definition of work-related activity in the legislation that the Minister read out remains even more relevant today.

It is instructive to hear what employers have to say. Recently I attended a listening event with small and medium-sized enterprises in Manchester. I declare an interest as a policy adviser to the Chambers of Commerce. It was salutary how many of those owners of businesses complained about the preparedness of students now for the workplace, not in terms of being prepared to do the specific job that the workplace was doing but simply in terms of getting there on time, being expected to work perhaps from 8:30 pm to 4.30 pm and the general, basic teamwork skills that you need to deploy to be successful in the workplace. They were arguing that many schools prepare students very badly for that, even with work-related activity as a statutory duty.

Today I was sent some comments about this proposal from the Federation of Small Businesses. It says that it is disappointed at the proposals to remove the statutory duty to deliver work-related learning at key stage 4, and argues that the concept of work-related learning should be broader than purely work experience placements and should encompass helping students to gain a range of experiences and skills that they will need in the workplace, such as writing job applications, and work-based skills of the sort that I mentioned, such as timekeeping and so on, improving young people’s understanding of potential careers and jobs. In fact, the FSB argues that work-related skills and an understanding of business and enterprise should be gained at as early an age as possible. The statement that it put out today repeats the contention that we should start early with work-related learning, maybe in small doses, in order to embed some of those skills and knowledge about the workplace in our young people.

The FSB goes on to say:

“This is not to say that work related learning and work experience for young people is perfect and cannot be improved but in our view we cannot see any significant justification for its removal which outweighs the benefits of introducing young people to work related knowledge and experience at Key Stage 4. In our view this is an area of learning that needs to be strengthened rather than watered down”,

and it is concerned that:

“Removing it from the statutory curriculum will inevitably lead to it being sidelined”.

The British Chamber of Commerce has said that it endorses the FSB’s statement, so there is a range of concerns from employers and it would be good if the Minister addressed them when he replies.

A second concern is the consultation, which produced the result that 89% of the just short of 600 respondees said that they were opposed to the change that the Government are making, and gave various reasons for their concerns, which we can see in the consultation document, all of them reflecting some of the points that I have just raised and which the FSB has talked about. I found it rather—I was going to say “insulting”, and I am sure that the Government do not mean to do that. There is a great deal of detail about the kind of responses that people gave and their reasons for opposing this measure. Yet the consultation document simply says, in terms of next steps, that the Government have decided to proceed with removing the duty, without engaging in any way with the concerns that people have expressed and the reasons why they are opposed to the action that the Government are taking. That is something that the Minister may want an opportunity to develop.

There is a range of concern in the world outside, and I would like to bring all that down to four questions for the Minister, if he would be kind enough to think about them. First, if work-related activity continues to be important to the Government, as the Minister says that it is—I understand about the evaluation work that is going on, and the models that are being tested by colleges—why, then, are the Government abolishing the statutory duty to provide it rather than amend that duty to allow schools to be more flexible and to extend it for 16 to 18 year-old, for example? I know that the Minister has said that abolition fits in with the Government’s mantra about liberating schools and freedoms, but a lot of people are concerned that anything that is not in the national curriculum will be sidelined, as the FSB contends. Therefore it would be possible for the Government to have amended the duty rather than abolish it altogether. Why have they chosen abolition?

Secondly, why are the Government ignoring the overwhelming views of the people who took the trouble to respond to the consultation with very little explanation? Thirdly, will Ofsted specifically report on the extent to which schools are providing effective work-related activity, and on the quality of those experiences that the students are getting?

Finally, given that the Government are undertaking this evaluation and working with colleges to experiment on different models, at least for 16 to 18 year-olds, will they at some point produce guidance to illustrate what that best practice has been found to be? When the results of those projects are available to inform ideas about best practice, will the Government consider making that guidance statutory, so that schools and colleges at least have to follow what has been discovered to be the best alternative way of doing them? I would be grateful if the Minister could address those points in his reply if at all possible.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I preface my comments on the order with this: when one sits in this Room, sometimes, listening to the debate on an order that has been listed prior to one’s own, one often hears interesting things. I heard of something today called “rural proofing”, which I had never heard of before. It struck me that about 18 months ago, the Minister for Children, Sarah Teather, hinted that we might get child-rights proofing of policy before very long—or at least before this government comes to an end. Will my noble friend write to me to say how that is progressing?

On the order, I do not agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, that early experience of these issues is necessarily the best. They become more relevant later to the young person, when they get a bit nearer to leaving school and considering whether they are going on to further or higher education, or some training in employment. Of course, that is not going to happen before the age of 17 next year, and before the age of 18 a couple of years after that. Schools really struggle to find enough places for 14 year-olds. Many employers do not see it as terribly useful to have 14 year-olds knocking around their place of work.

I, too, received a briefing from the Federation of Small Businesses. I do not think any of us would disagree with the list of knowledge sets and skills that the federation wants young people to have before they leave school. However, having had a number of teenagers doing work experience with me for a couple of weeks, I do not think that young people really get those skills. I did my best to give them the best experience that I could, but they were certainly not training to become Peers of the realm—unless they would be prepared to stand for election.

Schools: Children in Care

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, in 2008, under the previous Government, we had the Boarding School Provision for Vulnerable Children pathfinder. Since we should be in favour of evidence-based policy, can my noble friend tell me whether that pathfinder has been evaluated, what the results were and whether the Government will take action along those lines?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

As I was saying, the numbers involved in the pathfinder under the previous Government were small—I think that only 76 children were considered for places, 17 of whom were placed; and of those, 11 stayed the course. So, the number was small. However, I do not think that that is a reason for us not to explore this further as a possibility, taking into account the fact that it clearly will not be the right option for everyone and that we should consider the interests of the child first and not look for a single solution.

Education (Exemption from School Inspection) (England) Regulations 2012

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I do not have a “pathetic faith” in inspections, as my noble friend Lady Perry of Southwark, put it, as may become clear as I progress through my comments. The Explanatory Memorandum is very interesting and raises a number of issues. I am not against exempting outstanding schools and giving them more autonomy, as long as the risk assessment described in the memorandum is rigorous and properly applied. Paragraph 7.1, which my noble friend has just quoted, states that the policy intention,

“is to give the best schools the power to manage their own performance and to be more accountable locally to their communities, rather than to central government”.

Does this mean that the Government plan to restore the link between academies and their local authorities, allowing local authorities to monitor the performance of those schools and giving them the levers to ensure they are serving the community well? If not, that sentence is meaningless.

There is some detail about the risk assessment in the notes. It mentions that inspection will recommence if performance deteriorates significantly. How will that be judged? What is meant by “significantly”? Annexe A is even more interesting. It suggests that the changes will lead to higher quality inspections. Well, we would all like to see that, especially those of us who heard “File on 4” on Radio 4 on 1 July. We are told that Ofsted expects to save around £2.5 million per year through inspecting fewer schools. Can Ofsted plough back the money to improve the standard of inspection and inspectors, or does it have to be returned to the Treasury? In the latter case, how is Ofsted expected to improve the quality of inspections without any money?

Of course, Minsters always say that the quality of schools depends on the quality of teachers and school leadership. That is, of course, quite correct. In the same way, good inspections depend on the quality of the inspectors. There were some very worrying cases in the programme. Broughton Hall school in Liverpool is a case in point. It sends many pupils to Oxbridge and 97% of its pupils get five grade A to C GCSEs, even though it is located in a deprived area. The school was threatened by an Ofsted inspector with special measures, even though it had an award-winning outstanding head. There were 27 errors in the report. Ofsted refused to correct them all but gave the school a “satisfactory” rating. But we all know that, come September, “satisfactory” becomes “unsatisfactory”, so the stakes are getting higher. All the more reason therefore, why we are entitled to ask about the quality and fairness of the inspections.

In the programme Sir Michael Wilshaw, Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Schools, said:

“Schools have a right for the inspection to be rigorous, to be fair. If not they have a right to write in and their complaint will be looked at”.

But, “Where is the redress?”, said a head in the programme. He went on to say:

“If I get it wrong I will be held to account. Who holds Ofsted to account?”.

The problem is that Ofsted is not obliged to correct its mistakes. The adjudicator can look only at the way the original complaint was handled, not at the substance of the original judgment. Who does that? It relies on people going to judicial review, and we all know what that means.

All other regulators are held to account for the quality of their regulation by the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Act 2006. It was clearly the previous Government’s intention that Ofsted, too, should be held to account under this Act. The response to the consultation shows that very clearly. Does Ofsted fall under the LRRA 2006 or not—and, if not, why not? If it does, it should follow the Hampton principles, including transparency. After all, there is evidence that the number of complaints against Ofsted is rising. The department itself admits to one in 12 inspected schools. That is a lot. There is not enough information about the qualifications of those who inspect schools and about whether they are qualified teachers or have recent experience in school leadership or in the specialist subjects on which they are passing judgment. My noble friend Lady Perry, who is uniquely qualified to ask questions on these issues, asked a Written Question about how many were even qualified teachers, but did not get a straight answer. It is not even known how many HMIs have secondary leadership experience, let alone all the freelancers employed by agencies.

In the light of “raising the bar” for schools, will the Government start to collect this data and raise the bar for Ofsted? We all want to bring about improvement in our schools, but we need to have confidence in those who make judgments about school standards. Currently that is in question. It strikes me that the saving implied by the reduction in the number of inspections brought about by these regulations gives us a great opportunity. We need to start asking a lot more questions about the quality of Ofsted inspectors and inspections if they are to concentrate on core areas, as they are, and if the consequences for schools of the judgments that they make are to become more serious, which they are. That is only fair.

[Lord Hunt of Kings Heath]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend for allowing us to debate this important issue. I declare an interest; my wife is training to be an Ofsted inspector. I expect to learn much more about the process in the years ahead. I was surprised that the suggestion was made that the Committee stage of the Bill would resume at 8.30 pm. This debate is not time limited and I hope that we will not allow ourselves to be restricted in the Minister’s winding-up speech.

I accept what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said. Ofsted inspections are not everything. I also understand the criticisms that the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, made about specific Ofsted inspections. However, for parents and children Ofsted none the less provides a key safeguard if things go wrong in an individual school. That is why I am very much opposed to this statutory instrument; why, as noble Lords will recall, we had a vote on this at Report; and why many noble Lords remain concerned about the decision.

If ever one wanted to a reason to put forward to your Lordships’ House for needing this safeguard, it was the quite extraordinary decision of the Minister’s department this week to allow a free school to be opened by a group of creationists. The group behind the plans, known as the Exemplar Newark Business Academy, put forward a revised bid by basically the same people who proposed the Everyday Champions Academy last year, which was formally backed by the Everyday Champions Church. That bid was rejected explicitly because of concerns surrounding the teaching of creationism. In February 2011, while promoting the Everyday Champions Academy bid, the Everyday Champions Church leader, Gareth Morgan, said:

“Creationism will be taught as the belief of the leadership of the school. It will not be taught exclusively in the sciences, for example. At the same time, evolution will be taught as a theory”.

That bid was rejected, but it has resurrected itself—if I may use the term in relation to creationism and that belief. This is now going to be a bid by the Exemplar Academy without the formal backing of the church, but the website for the new academy was initially part of the Everyday Champions Church website, and the plans were launched at the Everyday Champions Church, described as a resubmission of a previous bid.

I use this, first, as an occasion to strongly protest against the decision of the Minister’s department on this matter. I find it outrageous—outrageous—that a school that clearly is going to be tempted down the creationism route has been authorised by the noble Lord. What safeguards are there apart from potential interventions by Ofsted if we find that creationism is being taught? What happens if Ofsted, first time round, makes it an outstanding school? For many parents there will be no recourse whatever. That is why one objects so much to the Government’s decision in this regard.

I recognise that exempt schools may still be subject to inspections as part of the chief inspector’s surveys of general subjects and thematic reviews. I noted what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said. However, what I find quite extraordinary is that this flies in the face of all the other regulatory regimes that are present in relation to public services, as my noble friend said. I thought that the Explanatory Memorandum was disingenuous—to put it kindly—when it stated in paragraph 7.3:

“Of the schools judged outstanding and inspected more than once since 2005, over 90% have remained either outstanding or good at their latest inspection”.

The reality at that time, as we discussed last year, was that, out of 1,155 schools that had been judged outstanding in that period, on subsequent inspection more than 30% had a reduced grading, including 58 that went from grade 1 to grade 3. What we see quite clearly is that outstanding schools do not remain outstanding. That is why this policy is so fatally flawed. I also refer the noble Lord to the college sector. I understand that in the inspections undertaken between January 2012 and May 2012, two outstanding colleges fell by one grade, two fell by two grades and one fell by three grades. Indeed, my understanding is that none maintained the outstanding grade.

I have seen no coherent, intellectual argument that would justify exemption for outstanding schools. There is no evidence that all outstanding schools remain outstanding. We hear about the risk assessment approach —the desktop approach—but I do not believe that there is confidence that that approach can get in to the school and actually see what is happening.

I will ask a number of questions of the Minister. First, we have heard that Ofsted will pay particular attention to a school or college where a new head teacher has been appointed. What about a considerable change in the leadership team? I also note that the consultation in March 2011—this order has not been consulted on but the original policy was consulted on—showed 60% of respondents supported a risk-based approach to determining which school should be inspected. Can the Minister tell me whether parents were brought into this consultation? If parents knew that this was going to happen, I doubt very much that they would have supported the policy.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

There are some harder judgments to make about some of the children who might typically be in special schools or pupil referrals. That is a fair point. Given the particular sensitivity about those schools we would prefer to proceed cautiously in that respect.

At bottom, this is an argument about trust, not just about trust in schools—and I am not seeking to make a political point—but about whether we feel that we can trust Ofsted to do its job. There is a difference of opinion between us over the meaning of “proportionate”. What the Government have been doing has been made possible by the great increase in information that we have encouraged, as well as by the further strengthening of risk assessment that has been put in place, partly as a result of concerns expressed by Members of this House. It is no more than a logical expansion of developments in recent years. I commend the steps that we have taken to the House.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Since my noble friend appears to be drawing his remarks to a close, will he write to me about the questions that I asked him?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Yes, of course, my Lords.

Education and Training: People with Hidden Disabilities

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord Addington on securing this important debate.

When reading the briefing material that came to those of us who had our names down to speak in this debate, there was one particular statistic that jumped out at me. It was that, in a study carried out in 2003, 41% of a sample of 1,000 unemployed people were dyslexic. I do not know whether there has been an update, because that was almost 10 years ago, but it is a pretty damning figure. Therefore, if your Lordships do not mind, I am going to stretch the topic of this debate very slightly beyond education and training into the employment which we hope will result from them and which is an important component of a fulfilled life.

An example from the Dyslexia Foundation about an organisation called Training Plus Merseyside in my city of origin, Liverpool, was instructive. In 2004, it was told that 4% of its clients had a special educational need. It obviously had a hunch that this was a gross underestimate, so it did something about it. It did some staff training, invested in screening tools, paid for psychological assessment and used ICT interventions, and it found that the real figure was nearer to 30%. What that tells me is that, at least at that time, the number of people slipping through the diagnosis net at school was far too large and many of those were landing up as NEET—not in education, employment or training. Indeed, all young people with disabilities are two and a half times more likely to fall into the NEET category than their fully able peers. Of course, there is a large cost, both personal and economic, to this, so we need to get it right at the education stage before the situation becomes entrenched.

The Government understand the importance of early diagnosis and intervention and have announced professional assessments of children’s health and development at the ages of two and five, as well as the phonics check at year one in primary school. I hope one can assume that the two and five year-olds’ checks are done by multidisciplinary, experienced professionals, but the phonics test will be administered by ordinary classroom teachers. That is why it is so essential that all teachers, in their initial training, have a meaningful SEN unit, including information about how to recognise and source appropriate help for children who achieve low scores in the phonics test and who therefore may suffer from dyslexia at some level.

Of course, it is far more likely that the parents will have noticed a problem—particularly with that other hidden disability, ASD—long before the child goes to primary school. It is really sad that so many of them say that they struggle to access appropriate care in therapies. I met a parent recently who noticed something wrong when their child was two and sought medical advice when he was two and a half. The doctors would not intervene until he was three, by which time his fairly normal vocabulary for his age at two had all but disappeared.

For parents with a child with severe ASD, working with their child and supporting him through his therapy and exercises is a full-time job. It is an enormous commitment, often meaning that they have to give up their own career, with the resultant stress on the family budget. However, if the condition is caught early enough and appropriate interventions are provided, the results can allow that disabled young person to be quite functional and lead a pretty normal life. However, adjustments have to be made in the education and work place and the person supported to reach his full educational potential and then become a productive worker. Even NICE says that this is a cost-effective intervention.

In schools, if the condition is not detected, as Charlie Taylor, the Government's behaviour adviser told the education Select Committee this week, it can result in bad behaviour. The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, has given us some graphic examples of that. As he pointed out, this is not the child's fault and should not be treated as such. Sadly, many employers also do not understand the conditions that we are talking about today and make no allowances.

Another thing that struck me in the briefings was the statement from Ambitious about Autism that:

“At 16, young disabled people hold the same aspirations to stay in education and find fulfilling careers as their non disabled peers”.

Well, of course they do; but, sadly, only one child in four with autism continues their education beyond school due to lack of suitable courses and lack of support. However, many do persist and get university degrees. When you think of the struggle that they have had, it is tragic to learn that a quarter of graduates with autism are unemployed. That is much higher for their age group despite the fact that seven out of 10 employers who have autistic employees report a very positive experience and would recommend employing people with autism to other employers. It is a terrible waste of talent after such a struggle. It is no wonder that many of them succumb to mental health problems, welfare dependency, and so on. This must change.

The Government have introduced the Youth Contract to help unemployed young people to get into work, and I think we can safely assume that many of them will have dyslexia or autism, or may be somewhere on either of those spectrums. Can my noble friend the Minister tell me what special provision is being made within the Youth Contract for these young people? If it is not for them, who is it for? It is doubly important that these young people are catered for with appropriate courses and support into work, especially in the light of the impending duty to stay in education or training until the age of 17 and then 18.

I return to education and the much more common condition of dyslexia. The Government have made clear their deep commitment to improving literacy. They are also changing and improving initial teacher training and continuing professional development. These two things go together. In this country we work with teachers to improve their practice. We do not sack head teachers on national television, as Michelle Rhee, the director of education in Washington DC did. We have nothing to learn from a city that let its schools get into such a bad state, where half of 15 year-olds were illiterate and 1,000 teachers were considered incompetent. Things are different here.

Will my noble friend the Minister say whether all the future vehicles for initial teacher training—including the ones in the new training schools—will have a compulsory SEN component, including training in how to recognise dyslexia and how to access the right support? Can he also say what is being done about teaching assistants? Again, the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, mentioned their importance. They are now an indispensible component of the staff of modern schools—especially primary schools—so it is vital that they have opportunities to specialise in supporting teachers with children with disabilities or special needs in their classrooms—which, actually, is most of them—and that they have a clear career path if that is the way they want to go. Can the Minister say something about that?

It surprised me recently to discover that the Open University teaching courses, often used by teaching assistants to move on to be a full teacher, do not have the option to specialise in SEN. One has to do a general teaching degree first. This is a pity as many teaching assistants already have good experience with children with special needs and could do well on a specialist teaching course. If this is not correct, I hope someone will give me the information.

As we have heard, Dyslexia Action is calling for a national dyslexia and literacy strategy. You cannot have a literacy strategy without addressing dyslexia. As the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, has pointed out, there are four simple key elements: whole school ethos; knowledgeable teachers; creative adaptations to classroom practice so that all children can be included; and access to additional learning programmes and sufficient resources. This does not seem too much to ask and I hope the Minister can assure us that this will happen.

Young People: Parenthood

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 27th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, while welcoming the Government’s recent statement that they intend to try to ensure that when a family breaks up, both parents have the opportunity to fulfil their parental responsibilities to the child—after all, that is the child’s right—will my noble friend the Minister confirm that in any legislation the safety and best interests of the child will remain upfront and centre?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My noble friend is exactly right in both her points. We should try to have a legislative framework whereby the involvement of both parents in the upbringing of children is made as easy as possible. She is absolutely right that the core and underlying interest in all this legislation is to make sure that the interests of the child are at the heart of whatever arrangements one makes.

Schools: Curriculum

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Wednesday 20th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

First, a number of recommendations made by the expert panel were accepted by the Secretary of State. Secondly, although it is true that there were differences of opinion between some members of the expert panel, and between some of them and Ministers, a difference of opinion between Ministers and expert advisers is scarcely unheard of. However, Ministers ultimately have to take responsibility for their decisions. I think most of us in this House think that that is the way it should be. However, the key point of the proposals that the Government have brought forward is that we are trying to raise ambition and standards in our primary curriculum, particularly as a gap in attainment has opened up between the UK and other international jurisdictions and we are keen to try to narrow it.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, the reference to international comparisons reminds me that in foreign countries children often start learning languages at primary level, something in which the Secretary of State is very interested. Given the difficulties with the lack of teachers and the fact that many secondary schools have dozens of feeder primary schools, all of which might have taught a different language, will my noble friend the Minister look into language appreciation or language taster courses so that children get a foundation in foreign languages but do not study for too long a language which they may not be able to carry over to secondary level?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as my noble friend will know, one of our proposals for the primary curriculum is to make the teaching of foreign languages compulsory at key stage 2. Those proposals are out for consultation. There is clearly an important question to be addressed about the quality of teachers and how to teach languages, because we have fewer than we need and there has been a drift away from modern languages in recent years. One of the things on which we will welcome views to the consultation over the next few months is how we can make sure that teachers have the support they need to ensure that languages can be taught at primary and secondary school.

Schools: Admissions

Baroness Walmsley Excerpts

Thursday 14th June 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am sorry, my Lords, I thought I had said that in overcoming that divide the Government are extremely keen, as is the Secretary of State, to pursue the goal of bringing the two sectors together in as many ways as we can. As I said, some of that is through sponsorship of academies. The free schools programme, to which I just referred, will welcome high quality independent schools into the maintained sector, providing a good quality of education free for children from all backgrounds. It follows from some of the initiatives that the previous Government took to bring some of those schools into the academy sector.

[Baroness Walmsley]

Will my noble friend reaffirm the Government’s clear statement that they do not want an expansion of selection among schools maintained by the state? In that connection, will he consider clarifying the law on expansion of existing grammar schools and, if necessary, change it if it is not meeting that objective?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Yes, my Lords, the Government’s position on selection is clear and we have no plans to change it. The existing legislation that governs the prohibition on the introduction of new selective schools remains in place. The only change that the Government have made since we came in is the ability of schools of all types to expand their number locally in response to parental demand, if they are popular schools, because we are keen to give parents more ability to get their children into local popular schools.