Education Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the man that my noble friend Lady Perry was remembering was Tristram Jones-Parry—one of the finest headmasters Westminster School has ever had. When he retired he was not allowed to teach mathematics in a state school, although he had taught it at Westminster. This illustrates how fatuous the current situation is.

I am also worried about this amendment in terms of what the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, was saying a few days ago on the way in which teaching will move as technology moves in. People outside teaching will become much more involved. There is a lot of demand from industry to get involved, say, in language teaching and make their staff available for language teaching. The situation is similar in technology. Certainly the teacher has a very strong role in supervising this, but some of the teaching will be done by people who are never going to be qualified; people who have no interest in becoming qualified and who are performing that function under the supervision of a qualified teacher.

My suggestion to my noble friend is that the best way to tackle the concerns that have been addressed around the House is to make sure that anybody who asks can see a full list of the qualifications of every member of staff in the school. In this way, whatever decisions are being made by the head will be made in public and will be decisions that he or she will have to justify. That seems to me the best way to combine safety with the sort of flexibility that will let some very good people teach, despite their lack of some particular qualification.

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has just said. In the case of languages particularly, it would be losing an enormously fruitful possibility to forbid teachers of foreign languages to teach because they had no qualification. There are many people who come over to this country who would be very good teachers but have no qualification—a wife of somebody who is doing a professional job, for example—and they would be an extraordinarily good resource to be able to use. The question of supervision is, of course, enormously important. The other area where we would lose a great deal is that of music. A lot of professional musicians do not take a teaching qualification.

There are born teachers who love teaching and teach extremely well, but who do not want, or are too old to take, a teaching qualification. They should not be forbidden in our schools. We need lots of flexibility here. It is the attitude of the person to his or her pupils that is important, not a formal qualification. I strongly support what the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, has just said.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, many Afro-Caribbean families feel that their children are not being served well in schools. We all know that and it goes without saying. A lot of parents believe that the opportunity to have a free school is one advantage that will give their children an opportunity to have a fulfilled relationship in the classroom, as the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said. Having a teacher who is perhaps not fully trained is an opportunity to make sure that those young people who need just a bit of understanding and care can feel that the way that they are thinking and feeling is being embraced. Free schools have given them that opportunity, and if the teacher is not qualified—as we have heard from many noble Lords in the House—we will be doing a great service to those young people in our society who feel excluded in many ways.

Education Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Quirk]

My Lords, I rise to speak to Amendment 79. Clause 40 requires the chief inspector to consider a familiar quartet: the spiritual, moral, social and cultural development of pupils. Amendment 79 would insert the word “linguistic”. In other words, we would wish the chief inspector to focus upon the child’s unique and very precious language faculty, and properly so, because language proficiency is not only essential for the other desiderata in Clause 40, for example social and cultural development, but, more widely, it is a precondition for the whole of education itself.

Many thousands of our children start school linguistically impoverished and hence cognitively impaired. The numbers extend far beyond the unfortunates with pathological problems that require serious intervention by speech and language therapy. These are a tiny unfortunate minority compared with the far greater unfortunates who by reason of family dysfunction or social circumstance have little experience of parental or sibling chatter let alone bedtime stories. They have been denied the rich linguistic exposure that more fortunate children can happily take for granted.

The language faculty depends crucially upon early intervention. Language development is something that has to happen as early as possible, pre-school preferably, as we have just heard in relation to Amendment 76A, moved by my noble friend Lord Northbourne, and as we did on his very first amendment, last week, when the elegant intervention by the noble Lord, Lord Peston, was especially memorable. If serious linguistic deficiency cannot be spotted before school, and if it cannot be spotted at least in the first few terms of primary school, then the consequences are disastrous.

None of this is controversial, and it is indeed in line with Her Majesty's Government’s policy. What we are talking about is language development that merely leads to the confident, competent command of English. Surely that is not a lot to ask of an English education, but at present we fall very far short of it. Employers are on record as preferring teenage recruits who learnt their English in Poland, Russia or China, because it is easier for everyone to understand their less sloppy diction and to read their better-formed sentences and clearer handwriting. We could go further. Without giving pupils a sound basis in English, how can we attract far more to go on and learn Spanish, German, even Mandarin? As noble Lords will know, one of the proposers of this amendment, the noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, chairs the all-party group on foreign languages.

Among possible objections to our amendment, let me just mention two. First, adding the word “linguistic” may invite further additions—“mathematical”, for example. But language is different, and is genuinely unique. It is the precondition of all else, from the rules of maths to the rules of football. Secondly, it may be objected that the addition of “linguistic” creates a tautology, since it is implicit in “social” and “cultural”. We would disagree. Doubtless some degree of social and cultural development need not depend upon language—even, perhaps, enough for inspectorial hurried box-ticking. But inspectors must in our view be required to pause and address language development as an area requiring their separate and specific consideration. Indeed, so far from being superfluous, we would argue that the omission of the word “linguistic” from the clause should be seen as a glaring oversight, so much do its neighbours “social” and “cultural” depend on it as the faculty by which all other development is both inculcated and expressed.

This brings me to a further and final point in urging this amendment. Clause 40, to repeat, requires that the chief inspector “must consider” how pupils are developing in four different respects:

“spiritual, moral, social and cultural”.

This is a quartet, of course, that is quite familiar in Ofsted-speak. It has been on Ofsted’s agenda for some time. Perhaps the Minister can give us some indication of the success that inspectors have had in grading children according to their development in these four respects. What does the Minister expect the inspector actually to do before ticking, say, the “spiritual” box, thus declaring his satisfaction at the pupil’s spiritual development? Then, when he moves on to the box labelled “moral”, what does he actually do before ticking that all is well with their moral development?

Now, if the next box were labelled “linguistic”, I know—and, more importantly, I know the inspector would know—how a professional assessment in this crucial area would be made. I would have confidence in what a tick meant and know that actual, speedy attention would be given if a tick were withheld.

My point is obvious. Not only is successful development of the language faculty essential for progress in all else that education has to offer, but linguistic development is observable, quantifiable and objectively assessable to a degree that makes the inspectorate’s judgment of critical value.

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I very strongly support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, as well as the amendment just spoken to by my noble friend Lord Quirk.

Linguistic deprivation is just as serious as any other form of deprivation that a child can suffer. An enormous amount of linguistic knowledge, practice and efficiency is learnt before the age of two or two and a half years. There are a vast number of children whose parents—or whose single parent, very often—are quite unable to supply the kind of stimulus that children essentially need, and from the deprivation of which they really cannot catch up. How can children start learning to read when they hardly have any vocabulary in the language they are supposed to be reading? It seems to me that before school is the crucial time, but as we have heard the most difficult and most needy children are very likely those who do not take advantage of pre-school provision.

Here I must repeat something that I have said a million times before, which is that I believe that the BBC has a huge responsibility for those children who are at home before school, and are not getting out of their home. The BBC should be providing radio programmes with songs and stories which supply what children’s parents very often cannot supply, namely constant exposure to language. I was also delighted when a noble Lord—I am afraid I cannot remember which—said at an earlier stage that one of the worst things that has ever been invented is the pushchair which faces away from the parent, so that the parent who is pushing the child cannot speak continuously to the child even before the child has any language to respond in.

I think that this is of enormous importance, and should be in the Bill, more so than all the stuff about spirituality and morality. I entirely agree that that can all go, because we cannot measure it anyway. What cannot go is what can be measured, which is the vocabulary of a child and his ability to communicate and respond to other people talking and singing to him.

Education Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment introduced by my noble friend Lord Low. There is often a tendency to treat SEN as if it contains only one group of people. I have had many letters from parents who find that the school may think that anybody is an expert in their child’s particular special need as long as they are an expert in SEN. That is far from true. This is particularly noticeable in the case of autistic children where understanding the management of autism, as far as it can be managed particularly in the school context, is a very specialist subject. That is why so many autistic children are excluded from school. It is of enormous importance that the SEN expert, who must quite properly be on the panel, should be an expert in the relevant disability.

It is also important that one should not think of SEN as completely contained in those children who have statements. As my noble friend said, at least 18 per cent of people with disabilities do not have a statement. Long ago, this 18 per cent without a statement came to be known as the “Warnock children” because I was particularly interested in them. They were often neglected because their disability was not serious enough or perhaps did not seem so. Therefore the local authority had no statutory duty to provide for them.

Exclusions, which I am sure all noble Lords agree should be avoided as much as possible, need to be carefully scrutinised for any child who is on the lower grading of disability. This often involves children with behavioural and emotional difficulties, who are likely to behave badly at school and incur either temporary or ultimately permanent exclusion. I welcome the improvements that have been made and I think that things are going in the right direction. However, these questions about children who do not have statements and about the choice of relevant expertise on the panel are of the greatest importance.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I speak to Amendments 17, 19, 21 and 29, and also support Amendment 15 and Amendments 24 to 28 that the noble Lord, Lord Low, and my noble friend Lord Touhig have spoken to. In particular, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Low, that Amendments 24 to 28 have, in quite large measure, been addressed by the guidance that we received from the Minister yesterday. I am pleased that, certainly at the stage of the review panel, which is the final stage in the process of reviewing an appeal, the Government have seen fit to make provision for most of the things demanded in Amendments 24 to 28: for a special needs expert to give their views, for the parents to have a right to that, for the parents to be told about that, and so on. That is all welcome.

However, the Government guidance does not address Amendment 15, which is similar in intent to our Amendment 17. They both seek to ask—the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock, just alluded to it—whether we can make sure that relevant information, particularly about a child’s special educational needs and especially unidentified needs, has been brought into the process not at the final stage of the review panel but at the very earliest stage of the head teacher’s decision and particularly at the point at which the responsible body—that is, the governors of the school—has been asked by parents to review that decision.

Amendments 17 and 19, in particular, concern the exclusion of pupils who have unidentified special needs. There is a principle of natural justice underlying the amendments: that where a child is at risk of exclusion, the decision-maker should have the full facts about any special educational needs—not at the final stage, as I say, but at the earliest possible stage. This is particularly important where needs have not been identified, so these amendments would ensure that children with special educational needs but whose needs have not been adequately addressed by their schools are not permanently excluded. In Amendment 17, that is by ensuring that when “the responsible body”—that is, the governing body—is making the initial decision on whether to affirm the head teacher's decision, it must,

“consider a report … from the special … needs co-ordinator”,

or expert. In Amendment 19, it is by ensuring that when the review panel is considering the case at the final stage, it has a report.

I accept that, alongside Amendments 24 to 28, Amendment 19 has largely been covered by the Government, which is great. Yet in relation to Amendments 15 and 17, while the Minister’s letter accompanying that guidance says that the responsible body as well as the review panel should take account of any relevant information in relation to pupils’ special educational needs when reviewing the decision to exclude there is, first, no requirement for the head teacher to take cognisance of that information when taking the initial decision to exclude and, at the level of the governing body in deciding whether to review that decision there is, secondly, no right for the parent to have a special needs expert. The guidance refers simply to the governing body having information on the child's special educational needs already held by the school. It does not precisely cover the circumstances where such needs have not been identified because it simply refers to the school making available to the governing body information that it already has, not seeking a wider assessment of the special educational needs that the child may have.

Surely it is better to have this expert view early in the process so that an exclusion may be prevented rather than only at the final stage, when a review panel is deciding whether to endorse the decision. That is particularly so given that the review panel does not, according to the Government's proposals, have the power to reinstate the pupil. I very much support Amendment 15 but if the noble Lord, Lord Low, decides not to press that amendment then I give notice that I would like to take the opinion of the House on Amendment 17, which would similarly bring the special needs expert person into the process earlier on to prevent the exclusions.

Amendment 21 would empower the exclusion review panels to require the schools to reinstate a pupil if they are satisfied that that is the right thing to do. We had a long debate about this in Grand Committee, when there was a very strong view across the Committee that this was a principle of natural justice—that if a decision made against someone is later found to have been flawed, that decision should not stand. Yet that principle is not upheld under the clause and the right to insist on the reinstatement of an unfairly excluded child is withdrawn.

In Grand Committee the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, among others, expressed similar concerns. It is rather surprising that the only amendment in relation to the power to reinstate has come from me and my noble friends, because I thought that the consensus of opinion in Committee was in support of that. I accept that heads may be in a difficult position if a panel were to reinstate, but we also had a sensitive discussion in Grand Committee about what should prevail in those circumstances. I think we agreed that given the impact on the child of having a decision by the review panel to reinstate, that is a far better outcome for the child, even if after discussion the child goes to another placement because of all the issues that have preceded that decision. It gives the child some rights in relation to flawed decisions which, at the moment, are not contained in the Bill.

Amendment 29, briefly, would require,

“a school to retain an excluded pupil”,

on its school roll,

“and to fund the pupil’s education until the pupil is no longer of compulsory … age”.

Our intention here was that the schools should retain financial responsibility but, more importantly, the responsibility for progressing that child and for their final outcomes in whatever alternative provision they went into. The intention was twofold: first, to give schools the opportunity to have a second thought before making the final decision on exclusion, knowing that they would retain responsibility for a child, as a kind of check and balance in that system and, secondly, to make sure that the school has some responsibility for the final outcomes for the child—even if the child goes elsewhere.

The Minister has sent me a letter and the department has issued a press notice on the pilots that the Secretary of State has announced, which are not the same as those proposed in our amendment but go some way to exploring the potential for schools to have responsibility for arranging an alternative decision. It is not the same as giving schools the responsibility of keeping a child on the roll. However, it involves the schools having the finance that goes with arranging alternative provision and the responsibility for ensuring the equality of that provision and for staying in touch, albeit more informally, with what happens to that child. I welcome that provision and I look forward to hearing the outcome of those pilots.

Although there is some movement in relation to Amendments 19 and 29 in the guidance, if the noble Lord, Lord Low, does not press his amendment to a vote, I would like to take the view of the House on Amendment 17.

Education Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

The noble Lord, Lord Laming, was most eloquent on this matter, because he has been involved in many cases. I, too, have read most of the large cases; at present, I have to read serious case reviews as the chair of the children and families court service. I see time and again that the key issues are the exchange of information, co-operation, and people understanding about partnership. For these reasons, it would be disastrous if we were to remove the clause on co-operation. It is such a small thing for the Government to do in relation to what the benefit will be for children.

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I strongly support the amendment. I have in mind, unsurprisingly, children with special needs who, as we know, are very much more likely to be excluded permanently from school than any other group of children. Ever since the 1970s, people have tried to encourage co-operation between education and social services in particular, but the medical profession as well. As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, it sends out a bad message to remove the duty. I do not usually like to think of laws being made to send out messages, but this carries the message that it is unnecessary to have a plan B which is understood by all the people who are deeply involved with the child. The amendments are therefore necessary for the well-being of the child. I met the other day the headmistress of a school—she was obviously the very good headmistress of an academy—who said that she never intended to use the local authority supplies because she did not trust them and it was bureaucratic. I was absolutely appalled by this because it simply deprives the local authority of the ability to keep an overview of all the needs of the child, which is of the greatest importance. I therefore hope that the Government will be able to think again.

--- Later in debate ---

Amendment 54 relates to the absence of checks and balances. It would require schools to retain financial responsibility for children whom they exclude permanently, as well as responsibility for their future educational outcomes. I know the Government are piloting this approach; it was referred to in the White Paper. However, I should like to know from the Minister whether the Government need legislative power to bring in this provision, assuming the pilots make it look feasible. If they do, would it not be a good idea to include it in the legislation that is before us at the moment, at least on an enabling basis? Such a responsibility to the educational future of a child, both financially and for the outcomes that they achieve, would provide another useful psychological check in the minds of the members of the governing body when they consider permanent exclusion, rather than the school simply being able to pay a fine and get rid of children who are difficult to deal with. In speaking to my amendments, I also support the other amendments tabled by noble Lords in this group.

[Baroness Warnock]

Is it in order for me to ask a question? I agree with much of what the noble Baroness says, but does she not recognise that sometimes sending a pupil back to the same school might not be appropriate and might be very difficult both for the school and for the child? The school’s duty is to find proper resources at another school, or indeed at another unit in the same school, so that the education can continue. This is relevant to Amendment 54, because the school could keep the child on the roll and make sure that they had a proper education. Does she agree?

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I agree in principle. The wording in the amendment,

“to retain an excluded pupil on the roll”,

means that the child is still recognised as having a connection with the school and that their education elsewhere needs to be funded and their outcomes included. That is one of the problems with the approach that we are discussing, because it does not allow for that subtlety. A panel might decide that the decision to exclude was wrong and that in principle the child should be reinstated, but there then needs to be a discussion with the child, the parents and the teachers as to the best course of action. For the child to go to another school with their head held high because a positive decision had been taken would be very different from their going to another school because they had been permanently excluded. It would wipe the slate clean, and they might well be better off having another opportunity elsewhere. I wish I had been clever enough to table an amendment that could allow that degree of subtlety, but I agree with the noble Baroness that that is ideally what should happen.

Education Bill

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Peston]

I have come specially to support the noble Lord on this. He refers to his amendment as a probing amendment, but in fact he puts his finger on what I regard as the single most important issue of education in our country at this time, particularly with his emphasis on the child’s parents or carers. He referred to the Chinese as pushy, but others of us were certainly pushy when we brought up our children. We were there for them all the time and taught them to read; we read to them first, of course. I am sure that many other parents in this Room have done the same sort of thing, but in this area we really are two nations, because other children’s parents are not like that at all—assuming that their parents or carers are there for them at all. Education is obviously overwhelmingly about personal development, but it also leads to people’s position in a highly competitive society. Too many of these children do not have a chance from the word go.

I hope very much to hear a positive response from the Government. The Government cannot take over the role of the parent—I do not suggest that we live in a society where that would even be remotely contemplated—but they must judge all their policies at least as being supportive in this area of activity. The noble Lord said that he was not going to divide us—of course, we do not divide on such matters in this Room—but we need something rather more substantial in the Bill that corresponds to the spirit of what he said, and that I, and I am sure all my colleagues, would support.

[Baroness Warnock]

I very much support the amendment for two reasons. I endorse all the things that have been said. First, I hope very much that “foundation years” can be incorporated in the Bill, because it would be useful to have a way of referring to children between nought and school age. Therefore, we might usefully take over that phrase and use it in the Bill. Secondly, and probably much more importantly, the amendment would give a chance for parents and local authorities to make contact with one another. If the local authorities have the duty imposed on them that the amendment suggests, they will know from the outset the position of each child and will be able to co-operate much later on. If the Bill is anything like what it is now, there is a danger that the influence of local authorities will be fragmented, but the amendment would be a start for a local authority to get involved right from the beginning.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, we on these Benches very much support the principles of what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is trying to achieve. I am quite sure that this Government will not sweep under the carpet the most important and powerful arguments made by Graham Allen and Frank Field in their excellent reports. I very much look forward to hearing the department’s response to the need for much more early intervention, which I believe will come along the track before very long. Indeed, the Government may decide that another legislative vehicle, which may be before us next year, might be more appropriate for putting forward what the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, is seeking to do. I absolutely agree with him about the vital importance of the early years, about parents as first teachers and as carers of the child, and the importance of supporting those parents in doing what we all know is the most difficult job in the world.

Children: Early Intervention

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, it is an enormous pleasure to follow the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. I congratulate him on his excellent and most interesting maiden speech. He is a man of extremely wide experience and, obviously, deep humanity. I am particularly delighted by the fact that he was introduced to this House on St Felix’s Day—Felix being the name of both my grandfather and my eldest son—and my having spent a very happy time just before the birth of my eldest son at Dunwich, no less, which now hardly exists but then was still a recognisable place, not taken over by the sea, as the right reverend Prelate said. Apart from that, we have every reason to be very glad that he is now a Member of our House and look forward to his contributions over a wide field, not just what we have heard him talk about today. I need hardly make the speech that I was going to make now that he has made his.

I shall concentrate for a few minutes on the question of communication, as the most crucial field for early intervention in childhood. I have been mildly encouraged by the recent Green Paper on special educational needs, because the Government have treated education, health and the social circumstances of the child as a seamless whole. That is, as far as it goes, encouraging. My only question is whether any concrete changes will come from the fine words in the Green Paper. The battle to treat those three areas as one in the life of the child has been fought for a very long time. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, said, it seems to have been fought a great deal for the past 30 years and will, I hope, change in the right direction hereafter.

It struck me that, thinking back to the 1970s when the report of the Committee on Special Educational Needs, which I was privileged to chair, was published, we were charged by the then Government with what now seems a completely absurd and impossible task, which is to recommend what such children need without mentioning a deprived background as part of the problem from which many of them suffer. That now seems ridiculous, but at the time, we were still in the days when being educationally subnormal, as it used to be called, or handicapped, put you into a class apart, a separate race of people. It seemed that we had to rule out mentioning deprivation or not having English as the first language spoken at home when talking about education, because it would put the children suffering from deprivation into the category of the handicapped, and that was known to be inferior. It would have been snobbish, at best, and racist at worst, if we had mentioned deprivation.

It is worth reflecting on what an absurd embargo was put on us at the time. It could not happen now. That is good, but it is most important to recognise the role that teachers, as well as parents, must play in identifying, and knowing what to do when they recognise, the difficulties that some children are having and the special needs that they may be demonstrating in the classroom. That means that not only specialist teachers must be prepared to intervene but that all classroom teachers must be trained to recognise such children and take the next step.

I end my remarks on a more optimistic note. This week, I was present at the launch of a new website especially designed for teachers in training and in post in the classroom. It was launched at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital School, which is a marvellous school. The website gives information and advice on an enormous number of difficulties that children may be experiencing in classrooms, starting with severe allergies and going through every possible educational obstacle. I very much hope that that website—which, incidentally, was financed entirely by Google—will be very widely used in teacher training establishments and by teachers as individuals when they are faced with a problem that they do not quite understand. I recommend that website very highly to all teacher training establishments. That may be a good example of the big society working.

Education: Special Educational Needs

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Thursday 21st October 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Warnock]

To call attention to the Government’s policy on special educational needs following the Ofsted special educational needs and disability review published in September; and to move for papers.

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to introduce the debate and I look forward to hearing the contributions of all those who can be here. I particularly look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara.

In calling the attention of the House to the Ofsted review, I hope that the Government will not simply disregard it—a view which I am sure is shared by all noble Lords. I know that there is a Green Paper in the offing but, because we do not know when it will arrive, I hope that there is time still to take account of the Ofsted review in the Green Paper.

In 2007, the all-party Select Committee on Education and Skills, chaired by Mr Barry Sheerman, chose special educational needs as its subject and later published two powerful reports. In these reports, the committee suggested that the current framework within which special educational needs are provided for had outgrown its usefulness and that there should be a new quango to look at the whole framework from the start. I very strongly expressed that view when giving evidence to that committee, and although one has to admit that times have changed and we cannot expect a new quango, as this Ofsted report points out, matters can be addressed short of rethinking the whole issue from the very beginning.

To those who have criticised the Ofsted report, saying that it is exaggerated or false, I say only that Ofsted took and examined a fairly large sample and that its findings are reflected in my almost daily postbag from parents who are extremely unhappy with the way in which their children’s special needs are being addressed. I shall take the Ofsted report as read and if other people wish to criticise it, so be it.

One of the matters about which the Select Committee report was most critical was the system of issuing statements of special need for some children but not all. It pointed out all kinds of difficulties with statementing, the main ones being that it is contentious in every single case, it leads to an enormous amount of anxiety and misery on the parts of both parents and children, and it is extremely costly in both time and money—money that can ill be taken away from the educational purposes to which it properly belongs.

I have no wish to defend the concept of the statement—noble Lords will realise that I cannot disclaim all responsibility for the idea of it—but it should have been glaringly obvious, and it was extraordinarily short-sighted of us not to realise, that if a local authority had to assess a child and its needs for a statement, and the same body had to fund those needs, it would in the end look not to what the child needed but to what it thought it could get away with: what it thought it could possibly afford. That was not obvious to the committee that reported in 1978. I think we were so bedazzled by the light that we thought we were going to shed on special education that we were blinded to the obvious financial consequences of statements for which the local authority had responsibility for both assessing and funding. One of the main objectives of the Ofsted report was to separate the funding from the assessing in such cases. I go along with that.

However, the main body of criticism in the Ofsted report is not so much of the statement itself but of the procedure for those children—by far the majority—who do not receive statements but are assessed within schools at two grades of special need. One is where it is considered that the school can provide for their needs. The second is the Schools Plus assessment, where it is recognised that help needs to be brought in from outside. The criticism targets those children who are being assessed in school.

The number of statements issued is marginally smaller than it was five or six years ago, but the children who are issued with assessments that they need special help, in school or partly from outside, are in far greater danger of being neglected or mishandled than children whose needs are so extreme or complex that they were probably picked up and noticed at an early pre-school stage, possibly soon after birth, and who will therefore slide quite easily into the issuing of statements and will have their needs attended to as far as possible. It is the children who are less severely disabled in one way or another and whose needs are less acute who are both the more numerous and more at risk of getting a very poor education. The conclusions of Ofsted are very much borne out by what I hear from parents up and down the country. These children start by being assessed for special needs, at the request either of their parents or of a class teacher, and are then given help or support according to how the assessment rates them.

The review finds that many more children are being assessed as having special needs than should properly be so assessed—I repeat that these statements have been disputed—and gives two main reasons for it. Rather brutally perhaps, I denominate them, first, as laziness and, secondly, as greed. It is laziness that makes teachers anxious to categorise pupils who make slow progress in learning, show little inclination to learn or are very hard to control in class. It is laziness that makes teachers often assess the children as having special needs, when in fact, as Ofsted states, their needs are no different from those of most children. What they need is better teaching. Like all children, they would benefit from dedicated, observant, sympathetic and, above all, exciting teachers. There can be no one in your Lordships' House who cannot testify, either from personal experience or from that of children and grandchildren, to the enormous difference that can be made to the ability to learn and the ability to want to learn when one moves, somehow miraculously, from the class of a bad teacher to the class of a good one. This is true of all ages and at all levels of academic or practical competence.

I do not deny that there are many children in mainstream schools with special needs, and many who can be identified very early on in their school career by well trained and vigilant teachers. That is to the great advantage both of the rest of the class and of the children so assessed. However, I also note Ofsted’s conclusion that,

“schools should stop identifying pupils as having special educational needs when they simply need better teaching and pastoral support”.

I hope that this will be addressed in the Green Paper when we have it.

The greed is displayed at managerial level. More children with special needs at school, especially at Schools Plus level, means more classroom assistants and perhaps other perks in the form of equipment or refurbishing. Perhaps a school can gain in reputation for being apparently so caring of its pupils as to bring in classroom assistants whenever it can, but extra classroom help does not necessarily solve the problem of learning difficulties. Merely providing extra classroom help does not necessarily improve the educational outcomes of children. On the contrary, many parents testify that very often the support provided to a child is totally inappropriate. Many children find themselves being taught almost exclusively, and sometimes on their own, by classroom assistants who have not been trained as teachers, still less as teachers with the proper skills to teach children who for one reason or another—there are very many different reasons—are finding it difficult to learn. The latter case tends to be worse than the first. In the past, Ministers have sometimes spoken as if one-to-one teaching is the best form of support for a child with learning difficulties and as if that sort of idea should be aspired to, but I very much doubt the truth of that. There is nothing in the ideal world so good as good classroom teaching, where children learn from one another as well as from their teachers. They are competitive and appreciate one another’s efforts. My belief is that the class is the place where children should be taught, if possible.

What makes it worse is that inexperienced teachers, when they have either a child on their own or just two or three children together, very often tend to intervene too soon. Amateur teachers are nearly always guilty of this, and even parents trying to help their children with their homework are guilty of intervening too soon. In the end they do the child’s work for them and do not wait to find out whether the child has really understood. If the assignment has been completed, that is okay. They do not know enough to know how to help people understand what the work has involved.

Some years ago—I think it was in 2005 or thereabouts —the Audit Commission published a report in which complaints that a number of children who had special needs were being taught almost entirely by untrained amateur assistants were very clear. The then Government disregarded it, just as they disregarded the Sheerman report in 2007. At the time, of course, no reason was given. I blame no particular Government for this; it is just Ministers’ habit of saying, “We do not think it is a good time to do this”, or “We do not think it is necessary”, without giving the faintest answer to the criticism or explanation of the point.

I have some questions for the Minister. First, do the Government have any solution to this overassessing? Secondly, there is a great difficulty for some children whose school time ends at 16 if they are disabled or have learning difficulties. There is no automatic transition from that stage to college, where they do not have a guaranteed place. Can the Government look very seriously at the need that everybody has to continue with their education from 16 to 19, as that should be as of right? It is an age when children with learning difficulties often make huge steps, as long as they are not kept hanging about.

My third question is rather more complicated. Can the Minister possibly contrive a way to persuade his colleagues that mixing up the terminology of disability discrimination with special educational needs has been a disaster? That happened in 2002. I believe simply that those two concepts are completely different—the concept of trying, lovingly and caringly, to help a child overcome or at least make the best of his educational difficulties, and the concept of making it illegal to discriminate unfairly against disabled people in the workplace or in society. Those concepts need to be separated out, and the Ofsted report calls attention to the extremely confusing nature of the terminology used to discuss these problems. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I thank all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. It has been extremely enlightening, enjoyable and very good. I particularly thank the noble Lord, Lord Stevenson of Balmacara, for his maiden speech. I loved it. He comes from the most difficult and recalcitrant of all areas of special educational need. I therefore congratulate him on that as well.

I especially thank the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, because what came through to me from her admirable speech was the need for optimism, which informed our report all those years ago. We felt that there was hope for children with special needs, whatever they were. She spoke of the low expectations that in her early days would have inhibited her progress if she had not had such admirable expectations of herself. She made a marvellous and inspiring speech which reminded us of the attitudes towards special educational needs that informed the late 1970s, before the horrors of the cuts came.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, for taking the whole issue so seriously—she always has—for what she said, and for providing the hope for more discussions. I finally thank very much the Minister, who was extremely interested and in learning mode before this debate. He is obviously interested and well informed. I thank him for his reply and I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.

House adjourned at 5.11 pm.

Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Warnock Excerpts

Monday 21st June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warnock]

My Lords, I support the amendments in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Low. Rightly, they were narrowly focused. At Second Reading, he said:

“Academies are independent schools that are funded directly by the Secretary of State and are accountable mainly through the funding agreement, rather than”,—[Official Report, 7/6/10; col. 514.]

through educational legislation. I am interested in accountability. I strongly support Amendment 13 because it requires that any other—to me, rather mysterious—mode of supplying financial assistance to academies should be as equally open as the contracts that are agreements between the applicant and the Government. I entirely endorse the desire that the noble Lord, Lord Lucas, expressed to see a copy of one of these model agreements.

The issue is about openness and accountability of how much money is being handed over—it will be a considerable amount—and exactly what the academy is committed to providing with that money. This is where I come to my noble friend’s main interest; namely, to seek an assurance that the money must be spent on provision for children with special educational needs. I think that we will come to more detail on that later. I share his feelings that the local authority must retain a good deal of responsibility for the provision of educational facilities for children with special needs, especially in very difficult cases of rare disabilities or multiple disabilities where individual academies could not afford to spend the money required.

There is a good deal of unclarity regarding special educational needs. Parents will be very much confused—perhaps more so if they read today’s Hansard than they were before. Amendment 13 would clarify the position with regard to the accountability of an academy, whatever way it receives its money from the Secretary of State.

[The Lord Bishop of Lincoln]

My Lords, on this group of amendments, the issue about whether these free schools will be academies could be a trifle academic if the Government are saying that the point of the future trajectory is that all schools should at least have the opportunity to be academies. We need to see this debate within that context.

Much more seriously, I endorse the recommendations that the security of those with special educational needs be affirmed in the Bill. The noble Lord, Lord Low, referred to the avoidance of doubt, and bishops are always up for the avoidance of doubt. There are some issues where it is too risky to leave matters simply to good will or mutual understanding, and special educational needs is one of them. We need to ask the Minister if he will look at ways in which that dimension of academy life can be secured clearly in the Bill.

My third point is to do with governance—not with who can be a governor, but with the purpose of school governors in this brave new world. Many of us have lived through various recensions of governance. I go back to when I was first ordained in the early 1970s and I was a governor of a school. It seemed that the main purpose of the governors was to meet quarterly, hear the head teacher tell us how good the school was, and to pat the head teacher on the head saying, “Jolly good. Keep it up”. It was not long before we saw the development of teacher governors and parent governors. Governing bodies became representative bodies that articulated the range of interests of those with any connection with the school. The role of governors changed quite significantly. Then the most recent Bill of the last Government, just before the election, looked dangerously as though it was tipping towards having governors acting as the Government’s narks. There were going to be requirements for governors to be able to spill the beans and blow the whistle when they thought the head teacher or someone else was not quite up to it. I am sure it will be said that that was not the intention, but that was how it looked. Certainly there was a shift going on in our understanding of governance.

What I ask the Minister is this. Before we even start nailing down categories of people who should be governors, what will we be asking them to do? What will be the role of governors in this new world of academies that is now emerging on the back of the primary wave? I cannot make a decision about the issue of who until I have some understanding of what it is that the governance of academies will entail. What will be the function of the governors? What gifts and qualities will be required of them? We will then be able to answer the question of who might be the most competent people to fulfil that vital role.