Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, there have been many wise words said this afternoon. Some sort of consensus is emerging that systems need inspection, and the Government are going to run into a tangled web if they think that we can end up with a random system, relying on complaints and such.

I, too, have had positive and negative experiences of Ofsted, but they have been mainly positive from its consultation with governors and parents of pupils. It does a very thorough job, although it depends somewhat on the team, as I think the noble Lord, Lord Knight, implied. I appreciate that self-evaluation within schools has contributed to checking standards but this can be fairly subjective, whereas an Ofsted inspection is objective. All systems, whether educational or not, should be inspected in some way to check on the quality, particularly systems dealing with children. If not, we risk infringing children’s rights to not only safeguarding, which has rightly been brought up, but academic achievement. I remember Graham Allen saying, in relation to early years, that we need firefighters but we also need smoke alarm systems.

I understand where the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, is coming from with her model. I would like to look at the people involved and the criteria that they are working from to do this kind of visiting, but it is an interesting idea. Some terrible things could be not picked up in a school that was exempt from inspection, such as extremism or the impact of unqualified teachers. We have to be very careful here. Maybe Ofsted needs reviewing or a lighter touch, but it certainly needs to be there to ensure that children are receiving the very best in our schools in this country.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I was sorry to be absent from these proceedings this morning but I was attending a youth court in London, where I heard about very serious offences committed by 16 year-olds. Two of them had been stabbed, one of them three times—in the lungs, the neck and, I think, the belly. It really brought home to me how important a haven schools are for children, and that the order that schools offer to children’s lives is so important—and, in particular, the fact that there was not a single father present in any of the four hours when I was listening to this. The mothers were carrying the burden for their young men.

With regard to the role of governors, is there clear guidance to them about how they can sit in, in schools, observing classes and what happens in the playground, so they can assist in this fire-alarm system in the new arrangements? I share the concerns of colleagues expressed in the Committee and look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I associate myself, too, with Amendment 116 and the excellent contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Flather. I come from Leeds, where we now have a city board for safer and stronger communities. It is interesting that the chief inspector has to report on safety but not on stronger communities as the legislation stands. The way in which schools contribute community cohesion over the whole of a city such as Leeds seems to me to be crucial to the way in which the city develops. I, too, hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, will bring back this matter on Report.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I hope that your Lordships agree with me that it is vital to give full recognition to those teachers and head teachers who put a huge effort into taking children forward. Where there is a challenging intake, perhaps with high levels of special educational needs or numbers of children with pupil premium, it is important to recognise in achievement the distance pupils have travelled and not just their performance against all other pupils across the country. I would be grateful perhaps for a note from the Minister on how Ofsted inspections will look at achievement and fully recognise it in terms of the distance travelled by children.

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, our names have been added to Amendments 115 and 118, so I will speak very briefly. First, I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, about the narrow focus on educational achievement which ignores the wider role of education in providing a safe and happy environment where all children can thrive and be healthy and confident. We believe that well-being should include such things as nutrition, exercise, relationships, respect for each other and how to overcome low self-esteem. A good school will include all this in the curriculum, but it does not mean that we should exempt all schools from having that assessed and checked from time to time.

The noble Lord, Lord Ouseley, gave a very coherent case for why Amendment 118 is important. It is important that we check that the Government’s rhetoric when they introduced the pupil premium can be backed up by independent assessment in the longer term, particularly in light of the new autonomous school structures. If we are not careful, disadvantaged children will get left behind. We need independent assessment to double- check that all is going well with the way that the money is being spent. I sense people’s frustration at the late hour and I will say no more at this stage.

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, my noble friend has made strong arguments for making comprehensive, transparent information on exam results and school performance available to all and we are committed to increasing the amount of information available so that people can build their own measures and reach their own views about progress in the education system. We have already published more information than ever before.

The 2010 tables enabled users to download the school-level data underlying the table so that they could carry out their own analyses. In January 2011, school spending data were published alongside performance information. In March 2011, we published school-level information on attainment in individual GCSE subjects. As has been stated, in relation to exam marks, the candidates do have the right to request their marks. In practice, awarding bodies do provide marks—and, where requested, exam scripts—to schools and candidates. That means, for instance, universities can ask applicants to provide individual marks in order to differentiate performance within a grade.

In relation to publication of marks in data sets, we want to make as much information as possible available about exam results, and we are happy to commit to considering the practicality of obtaining and publishing marks as part of the national school-level data we are releasing. I understand my noble friend will be speaking to officials about this at a meeting on 25 July.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has said, there will be practical issues that we need to consider. Collecting individual marks rather than just grades would mean a significant increase in the quantity of data that the department would need to collect and process, which we would need to ensure we could manage without undue cost. That said, although it is the Government’s intention to collect and publish as much information on qualifications as we can, in relation to having both marks and grades it is the case that the same mark on a harder paper would represent better performance and it would not always be fair to candidates simply to add up the raw marks to give the overall result. A uniform mark scale puts all those raw marks on the same scale, which is then converted into the grade boundaries.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned confidence in exam awarding bodies. Ofqual was established by the previous Government to improve and strengthen confidence in the standards of exam awarding bodies. Ensuring that that confidence is restored is what Ofqual has at its heart. It may of course be that our memories of the olden days when everything was so much better have somehow managed to make us feel that it was better; I seem to remember from my days of A-levels that there were still quite a lot of queries to the boards, but we were much more intimidated in making those queries.

I hope that, with the assurance that we will give serious consideration to the practicality of publishing marks as part of the school-level data that we are making available to all, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I have a quick question. Is there a measure that is easily understood and easily available to judge the progress that schools make in improving a child’s education? The Committee was discussing comparing schools. Is there a quick and easy measure that is easily accessible to say that this school is particularly good at taking children from one level to another, rather than judging all schools by one standard? Does that make sense?

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the difficulty is that the key stage 2 and key stage 1 data that are published are so coarse. The idea that you can effectively chuck children into one of three pots at the age of 11 and sensibly use that as a measure of anything is not something that I am comfortable with. If there were a better assessment, a teacher assessment, of where children were on a finer scale, you would have something that you could more reliably use to chart progress. Because of the coarseness of the base indicators, you can really only measure these things when large numbers of pupils are involved and the coarseness evens out. At the level of a primary school it is really pretty difficult, but at a big secondary you can get somewhere. Perhaps the Minister has something to add to that. I hope that the Government will consider releasing more and better data as part of what they are doing to improve the value-added indicator, which is a pretty important part of looking at how schools do.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

No?

[The Earl of Listowel]

If I may just interject, strong arguments are being made on all sides but I would like to make one assertion. It is important for children to have some experience of the numinous, of the higher power, of the spiritual life, if you like, in their childhoods, but particularly for some children who have a lot of chaos in their lives. Many young boys, for instance, growing up without fathers, children whose parents are separating or children whose parents suffer from issues around substance misuse do not have a strong sense of belonging to a family. As they go through life, a few of them may enter the care system. Often they move on from there with very little support. A significant number of those who do not have that support from a family may end up falling by the wayside in various ways. For some of them to be able to look back at an experience in their childhood when they felt at one with a group and had some contact with a god or a numinous sense of something beyond themselves, for a few of them in their adult life that may be an important experience where they can look for their own redemption and find somewhere that they can belong, though one means or another.

What concerned me in what the right reverend Prelate said is that we are not really discussing whether there will be one kind of spiritual practice in schools or another. I think that he was saying that if we go along with the amendments, his concern might be that in many schools it will start withering on the vine and there will simply be a formal gathering but not with this spiritual, reflective sense of a contact with a higher power. That may be what he was driving at.

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[Lord Touhig]

My Lords, we had a good debate on this issue on the second day of Committee. I do not intend to detain the Committee very long, other than to say that the Minister has been extremely helpful and thoughtful. We had a good discussion.

One point came out in that discussion but not when we debated this in Committee, although it is mentioned in the Minister’s letter. He says that he has various things to consider:

“I said that the Government needed to be mindful that individual head teachers and college principals and their collective professional associations had all expressed support for the proposals in the clauses”.

He indicated in our meeting with him that there had been objections around the country to the duty to co-operate. I have not come across that, and I do not know whether other noble Lords have. We were surprised by it, so perhaps we might look at this again on Report.

The Minister was certainly in a listening mode and said to us that most schools are now co-operating. That is a good thing, but the current legislation ensures that those which do not co-operate are obliged to do so. I do not remember who made the comment when we debated this issue on the second day in Committee, but they said that this is one bit of bureaucracy that we should welcome. I am sure that the Government will listen to us, and I do not doubt that the Minister will reach the right decision when we get to Report .

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, it is encouraging to hear that the Government are approaching this in such a careful and thoughtful way. The Secretary of State has made a commitment to look at education systems around the world in order to learn from best practice. I understand that in Finland it is normal for social services and the education system to work in close partnership with each other. Perhaps, if it is easily accessible, the Minister might like to provide some information about this for the Committee, or at least look to see whether what they do in Finland is relevant to what might work best in this country.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

My Lords, I rise briefly to thank the noble Lord, Lord Laming, my noble friend and other noble Lords for taking this matter up with the Minister on behalf of almost everyone in the Committee after the earlier debate on this subject. It is clear that they were speaking for all of us. On the withdrawn amendments of the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, I think that the proposal is a good idea and may well sit better in the health Bill when it finally comes. However, the duty on schools to co-operate would require them not only to co-ordinate with the local health authority at the strategic level, but also in relation to individual children and the packages that they need, whereas the well-being boards will look at services more broadly. The duty to co-operate is still necessary in order for schools to work with other agencies in relation to individual children.

I thank the Minister for his willingness to discuss this issue. All noble Lords in the Committee believe that were it in his gift, I am sure that the matter would not be proceeded with at this time, but obviously and rightly the Secretary of State has to make the decision. I therefore ask the Minister to give us an assurance that we will be clear about the Government’s intentions before we get to Report. Clearly, if the Government decide to proceed with this, Members of the Committee will want to think about their approach at the next stage.

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[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I look forward to what my noble friend has to say because I share some of the concerns of other Members of the Committee. I think it is important that we should continue to move schools admissions towards fairness. As the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has pointed out, this is not the history of schools. They have always been interested in finding ways of covert selection. The history of the last 10 years or so has been a gradual winding back from that. We even have Cardinal Vaughan Memorial School, that great Catholic school in west London, removing some of the most objectionable means of social selection which were in its admissions criteria. There are other examples of progress throughout the UK.

The Anglican church has been very helpful in what it has done to make schools fairer. However, it is a process that goes against the natural inclination of schools and governors. Once parents capture a school, they tend to want to keep it captured. I find it hard to understand how the proposals in the Bill will improve fairness. At this point, I shall sit down and listen to my noble friend.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I will be brief. I am grateful for the Minister’s reassurances that children in the care of local authorities will continue to have first priority in school admissions. I am looking for a further reassurance on this occasion. I think we all agree that when the state takes a child away from his family, the least that the state can do is ensure he gets the best education possible. We know that that has not been the case in the past. There is great instability in many of these children’s lives, particularly when foster placements break down in the middle of the school year and a child has to move to a new area and a new family. Teachers have told me that these children end up in the poorest schools because no places are left in the good schools by the middle of the year. I hope that the Minister can offer me further reassurance on this matter. I have missed the letter on admissions that might have already answered the question. How will he know that these children are continuing to receive priority? I should be grateful for information on that and I look forward to his response.

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[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I know that we are short of time, but I would like to interject that when we talk about giftedness, we are not just talking about academic ability. Schools should be urged to recognise that some children are immensely gifted with their hands, with technology, at sport, in music and so on.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I recall articles published in Scientific American and New Scientist not so long ago which looked at chess grandmasters. The articles identified that they had spent so much of their lives playing chess that they had become geniuses in the chess arena and suggested that genius derived from people spending an awful lot of time doing whatever they were most passionately interested in. I should be grateful for an assurance from the Minister that, for example, a young man who is passionate about science can have the opportunity to study science at playtime and after school, and that the staff within the labs will make the equipment available for him to use. I should like an assurance that, where young people are passionate about using their hands or whatever, there will be the necessary flexibility and resource in schools for them to follow their passion and spend a lot of time doing it.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

My Lords, I endorse the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, about the need for innovation in this area and, in particular, for linking up with local universities and perhaps local colleges. That is very important.

While we are talking about other areas—the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, mentioned children being brilliant at other things—perhaps I may get in a plug for something that will be happening in this country in October. I refer to the World Skills Competition, at which those who are brilliant at doing all kinds of things with their hands and so on will be exhibiting their skills. It is the skills Olympics. I hope that a number of Members of this House will go to ExCeL to see the exhibition.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, education is about helping every child to make progress and reach their full potential, and that includes those pupils who have a high ability or aptitude for learning. There are many ways in which schools can support and challenge those pupils with the highest ability, including, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell pointed out, setting and streaming. Where setting is done well and is regularly reviewed, it can raise standards, and teachers are free to do this. He asked, if it was so good to stream pupils in maths, why it did not happen also in geography. The answer is the numbers taking those particular subjects. You need a critical mass for each subject in order to make streaming an effective tool.

Schools target their resources in the way that they feel will be of most benefit to their pupils. That could include the provision of extracurricular activities or outreach programmes with local universities or colleges. We have removed much of the ring-fencing of funds that restricted schools’ ability to make their own decisions about how to drive their improvement.

Today, in response to the Bew report, we have announced that higher level tests for year 6 pupils will continue to be available for schools to stretch the most able pupils, if they wish. We will consider how to incorporate results from these tests in performance tables to give credit to schools that support their highest attaining pupils. Within a slimmed-down national curriculum, it is possible for schools to design a wider curriculum that best meets the needs of all their pupils: for example, pupils with a particular aptitude for languages taking more language subjects.

My noble friends made the important point about children from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular. One of the key points about the pupil premium, which is given to support schools in helping those pupils, is that we have given schools the freedom on how to spend it. Schools could, therefore, use those funds towards additional support for high-aptitude or high-ability pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them succeed. School governing bodies already have a duty to promote high standards of educational achievement and the well-being of all pupils at the school. I hope that my noble friend will understand that we are not attracted to a particular further duty.

In Amendment 107, my noble friend also seeks to promote greater co-operation between schools to provide for the needs of this group of children. We strongly support collaborative working between schools in the interests of their pupils, be those children with a particular interest, aptitude or need. As my noble friend said, there are many positive examples, such as schools providing a particular qualification at one school and pooling their interested pupils so that there are enough to warrant the course. We have had examples of Japanese or some specialist forms of learning where classes can be put together to provide a quorum to follow a particular programme. Schools have the necessary powers and freedoms to do this without new primary legislation.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Jones, asked why we got rid of the gifted and talented scheme. It was actually the previous Government who took the decision to end the gifted and talented scheme. Our strategy for education is about raising standards for all pupils, and that of course includes pupils with natural ability or aptitude. As my noble friend said, those children are our future leaders in business, our future doctors and teachers, our future engineers and scientists. I agree with my noble friends Lady Perry and Lady Sharp that it is also about those with the creative and manual skills. I entirely endorse their enthusiasm for the World Skills Competition in October, where we will see some of the most skilled young people from our country and around the world. We must not forget the abilities and aptitudes in those practical skills as well.

Schools already have the necessary freedom to work together to ensure that all the pupils in their care get an education that stretches and develops them. That is backed up by accountability through Ofsted inspections. More performance information on the progress that schools make with the highest achieving pupils will be part of that. With those assurances, I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing the amendment and supporting our approach.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Lord responds, I think that I am right in thinking that a Select Committee of this House, when discussing science education, drew particular attention to the lack of lab technicians and the difficulty that that posed for young people to spend time in the lab to do experiments. I encourage the Minister to consider that issue and consider what progress has been made since that report was published two years ago.

[Lord Blackwell]

I thank my noble friend for her response and thank the other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Some extremely helpful and interesting comments came in this brief exchange. It is clear to me that the amendments could be improved, if they were to be pursued. Obviously, I will want to reflect on what the Minister said about what the Government are already doing and come to a view on whether more should be done that the amendments would encourage. We may want to return to them on Report but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, my name has also been put to the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Lucas. I am delighted with the first report of what the guidance says because it is very much what I had hoped we would hear—a very strong message to teachers that their normal, instinctive behaviour is not somehow criminalised or disapproved or a cause for complaint in any way.

Dealing with this particular issue leads me to say that, looking through the Hansard reports of the last two Committee sittings, I am genuinely concerned that the picture we seem to give of teachers is a wholly negative one, as if they needed to be controlled and regulated otherwise they would be aggressive or in some way behave improperly towards the pupils in their care. I have spent most of my life working with teachers. I have enormous respect for them—for the way in which they entered the profession because the wanted to make children’s lives better, the way in which they work sometimes very long hours in order to bring that about; for the care and the thought that they put into the preparation of their classes and their relationships with children. I worry about the way in which the Committee has been talking, as if there was a whole generation of vulnerable children who were under threat from teachers who were going to behave badly towards them. Anyone who doubts what I say should read back through some of the speeches in Hansard. I hope that we can correct that impression because I know that it is not one that, at heart, this Committee believes. We have all declared our respect for the teaching profession, but I think that we should begin to show it in the way that we deal with some of these amendments.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords—

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, I am afraid that a Division has just been called in the Chamber. Although we have not heard the bell, the screen tells us that it is called so the Committee will adjourn for 10 minutes.

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[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I echo what the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, has said. My concern is that physical contact happens in schools, whether it is in music, sport or a whole range of things. If you try to codify it and say, “These are the areas in which you can have physical contact”, what about the other areas—for example, when a four or five year-old wants reassurance and wants to hold the teacher’s hand in the playground? If that is not in the guidance, does that mean that that should not happen? We need to be very thoughtful about this.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I support what has been said. It is a theme across children’s services that many practitioners feel inhibited—particularly with children who have had an upbringing where there has not been much demonstration of love—about giving a child a hug or comforting them. The theme there is that an environment of overall excellence is the best safeguard for children, as Sir William Utting said. The better the staff and the better they are supported, the more confident they will be to do the right thing for the child at the right time.

I was very grateful for the comments made by the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, about reading the committee report and, if I understand her correctly, the impression that it might give teachers about our sense of how good a job they are doing and how professional they are. It is a helpful way to rebalance our discussion. Certainly, from my experience principally in the past year when I met head teachers of primary schools, I was very impressed by their experience, judgment and understanding of children. I am particularly concerned about children from environments where they have experienced a lack of love, parents who are alcoholic or misusing drugs, or parents who are just not available to their children, which might be one of the reasons for my perception. When these children go into school they bring with them their home environments and earlier experiences and difficulties can arise if teachers are not well supported in responding to them. The Government’s adviser, Charlie Taylor, highlighted that point last week at a meeting and said that in his special school for children with EBD he was careful to help teachers to reflect on what had happened with the children and help them to see that, however aggressive a child might seem to be, that behaviour did not constitute a personal attack on the teacher but probably had something to do with the child’s home experience. By perhaps emphasising that area too much, I may have inadvertently omitted to emphasise the fantastic job that many teachers do with children. This is not an issue for many children but concerns only a small minority. I hope that my comments are helpful and I look forward to the Minister’s response.

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[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My noble friend says from a sedentary position that it does not sound like the Secretary of State, but it is also true that the Government have now closed down the COI. That also sends a signal about what they think about professional marketing and its importance. As a result of the advertising ban that we had once the Government took office, we have had a significant reduction in applications for people to be teachers, which also suggests that professional marketing works. I gather that we should just about scrape through in meeting the recruitment targets, but with applications 10 to 15 per cent down this year, that makes you question whether we will recruit the same quality, because we will be recruiting from a smaller pool of applicants.

The real problems will come next year because of the lag effect that we normally see around stimulated interest in teaching from people who are thinking about what jobs they will do once they graduate. I really worry about the effect on teacher recruitment for next year, especially in the shortage subjects, science and maths in particular, that we are so concerned about.

Hence the reason for tabling Amendment 76ZA. This repeats the clauses that established the TDA relevant to promoting careers in the school workforce. There were four main aims of the TDA when it was established in statute. I have simply repeated one of them: the aim of promoting careers in the school workforce. It is a probing amendment. I cannot pretend to be an expert parliamentary draftsperson and I cannot pretend to believe that the Minister—however reasonable a chap he might be—is suddenly going to cave in and allow this arm’s-length body to be created. However, the abolition of the Central Office of Information means that there is no other obvious capacity that I know of within government to do a professional job in running and procuring the integrated marketing campaigns to recruit teachers that we know from recent history are so effective in ensuring that we have the best quality recruits into the profession.

Therefore, the amendment proposes an arm’s-length body to perform this function to ensure that we sustain recruitment into teaching. If the Minister disagrees with my reasonable request to set up this arm’s-length body, I simply need him to give me a confident answer as to how this will be done as successfully as the TDA, and that he will ensure this marketing function is taken more seriously than in the current policy document. I beg to move.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask what the initials COI stand for.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

COI is the Central Office of Information, a substantial agency that works across government in order to provide capacity around buying advertising, marketing and so on. It was announced a couple of weeks ago that it was going to close with the loss of a few hundred jobs. When the initial arm’s-length body review by the Cabinet Office took place soon after the Government came in, resulting in the Public Bodies Bill which is currently in the other place, the signal was that the COI would be retained but—as I said—the decision was made a few weeks ago. On the noble Earl’s Amendment 78, which is also in this group, his proposal to retain an advisory board to government has some attraction to me as a defender of the status quo in that it is a variant on the status quo; it allows the Government to have their way to some extent by taking functions in-house as part of the centralisation of functions that this Bill represents. I would like to see the specific aim around professionalising marketing. I am pretty flexible about this but I think that those functions need to be retained.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I rise to speak to Amendment 78, which is in my name, and to support Amendment 76, to which I have attached my name. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, said, Amendment 78 would simply replace a board. Perhaps we can retain the current board as a special advisory group for the Department for Education.

The amendments are partly in response to a meeting recently of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Skills. The new chair of that group, in post for one year, concluded the meeting by saying two things. First, he said that when he visited Finland and had a meeting with politicians from across the political spectrum, he was very impressed by the strong consensus on education policy. Secondly, he said that the more he learnt about this issue the more it seemed to him that if politics could stay out of education, the better it would be for education. By tabling my amendment, I hope to probe the Government about how one might encourage that position of distancing politics from education.

The noble Lord, Lord Knight, referred to the rather disappointing results in recruiting teachers. It seems to me that this is a golden opportunity to get hold of bright young graduates who might have gone into the City at other times, but who might now choose to go into social care and education. It is sad that we are not getting the cream of the crop. If the noble Lord’s concerns are correct, and this is to some degree to do with interference from the Government, perhaps this is a good illustration of how it is sometimes better for politicians to leave the professionals and experts to do the job. There is an important role for politicians in ensuring that the right experts are appointed and that the criticisms from people sitting in their armchairs are answered.

I refer to the Youth Justice Board, which was an arm’s-length organisation. When there was a spate of thefts of mobile phones and muggings because of that, the Government responded by strengthening the laws around mobile phone theft. Unfortunately, one young man, Joseph Scholes, who had just begun at a children’s home, was out for the day with a group of young people. I understand that he was involved in the periphery of a mobile phone theft. Because of the response to the understandable and popular concern about mobile phone theft, when he was found guilty of being involved in this activity, he was placed in the secure estate, in a young offender institution, even though he was a very vulnerable young man. Unfortunately he hanged himself. The judge recognised that it was not appropriate for him to be placed in the YOI but that he should have been in a more sensitive environment.

Perhaps it is not a particularly good example, but it seems to me that the Youth Justice Board has a similar history to that described by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, which was that the Government despaired of being able to do the right thing in youth justice in 1998 or so. They were disappointed in the outcomes. We have had the highest level of children in custody in western Europe. The Youth Justice Board was set up with good positive outcomes. In the past three years the number of children in custody has reduced by 30 per cent. One sees positive outcomes. I am sorry to go on for so long and shall try to wind up as soon as possible. However, in Hackney, for example, politicians decided to give great authority to two very senior social workers. They challenged a culture in Hackney that had let down a lot of young people and children. After three years, they reduced by 30 per cent the number of children coming into care and saved the council a huge sum in doing so. They did this by putting in charge people who had a lifetime’s experience working in this area and by backing their work.

I think we will see best outcomes for our children if we give as much responsibility to people who have actually done the work, who are experienced professionals, and if we can keep politicians—who nevertheless have an important role—as far away as possible from such decisions. The TDA is a good example of a body which worked as a buffer between politicians and education and had good outcomes. I am looking for reassurance from the Minister that this will not have the adverse consequences that I fear.

[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, I will be brief and, I hope, to the point; I want to record my support for the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Knight. The TTA, followed by the TDA, were like a breath of fresh air in teacher recruitment. We have had a problem for many years and what they did—the figures bear this out—suggest that this amendment probes well and accurately.

A number of years ago, I took a group of Malaysian senior politicians and administrators to visit these organisations. It was embarrassing to see how much they appreciated what was being achieved in the agency—they were facing some of the same problems.

I have one question for the Minister. If this goes, would the Government be prepared to put down measures against which we can assess the impact of this policy? In other words, if the numbers of teachers drop, or the quality, will Ministers put their hands up and say, “We got this wrong”? But if there is a rise, fine—perhaps we will put our hands up and say, “Yes, we got it wrong”.

This will be a constant refrain from me, I am afraid. We need targets from the Government that change policies.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, will the Minister clarify one further point? There is concern that the Government imposed a freeze on recruitment for a period, which may have contributed to some of the applicants becoming disillusioned and choosing not to apply to teacher training. I would appreciate it if he could tell me whether that is correct.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, I have never been accused of being Maoist and believing in permanent revolution before. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Knight of Weymouth, I do not come to bury marketing but to praise it. I agree with a lot of his points about marketing and why one needs to have professional marketing. I know how much he did and I know the good job that the TDA has done. That is not in dispute and I completely accept that it has played a valuable part in raising the quality of our workforce, as many noble Lords have said.

Given my praise for the work that it has done, the question that may follow is: why are we proposing to bring those functions into the department? In a way, that links to the point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland. It is to increase accountability. I accept the noble Lord’s point that one of the consequences of bringing things closer to home is that Ministers will have accountability. If in the new arrangements the success of recruiting teachers is less than it has been before, that will be clear to see and it is clear whose responsibility that is. That is what lies behind the move and across the piece; namely, to deliver services, to increase accountability to Parliament and, by bringing services together, to make savings with back-office functions.

We are intending to transfer the key functions of the TDA, including recruitment and the promotion of teaching as a career, to the new executive agency, the Teaching Agency. It will continue to have the lead role in marketing, to which the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, referred, the opportunities and attractions of teaching. We want to retain the expertise that exists to carry out that role. We in many cases, would want the roles and the people currently performing them to carry on at the agency. One would not want to lose that professionalism, to which the noble Lord, Lord Knight, rightly referred.

The noble Lord and the noble Earl asked questions about the marketing freeze across government. As we know, there was a freeze in marketing as we tried to get on top of the huge ballooning of expenditure on marketing in recent years. We have managed to save many hundreds of millions of pounds across government by doing that, which was a necessary step. In response to the noble Earl, I am glad to say that that freeze having happened, things have picked up. We are back to where we would have wanted to be. As regards acceptances, the proportion of places filled is in line with previous years. In fact, I am told that we are doing a little better in physics and maths than we were last year, but we obviously have to keep going.

The coalition Government set out in our Programme for Government our commitment to reduce the number and cost of arm’s-length bodies. The Cabinet Office set out the criteria to test when it is right to have an arm’s-length body performing functions and whether a body should continue to exist. When we made that decision, we discussed our intention with a range of interested groups, including teacher and head teacher unions. On the point raised by the noble Earl about the advisory board for the new Teaching Agency, as we said last week when we were discussing another body, we need to have arrangements in place so that the Teaching Agency can benefit from the knowledge and views of a wide range of interested parties. We want to put such arrangements in place. The Teaching Agency will be bringing in functions from four different existing organisations and we want to ensure that we get advice in relation to all the functions of the new agency. Any new group that we set up will have to ensure that it has appropriate representation across all the areas of interest of the new agency.

It might be that an advisory board of the sort suggested by the noble Earl will be what we eventually decide to have, but, as regards his amendment, it would be premature to restrict ourselves to a particular mechanism before we have had a chance to develop further the way in which the new Teaching Agency will operate. However, we will look to the boards of the four existing organisations, the GTCE, the CWDC, the QCDA and the TDA, to offer their views on what may provide the best way forward.

I accept the force of the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Knight, about the importance of marketing. I have given my background in this funny world. He would not expect me to be a luddite on that issue. I accept the need for the provision to continue and to be delivered professionally. By bringing it in-house, we will have a cost-effective, streamlined and professional organisation. I ask the noble Lord to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, just before he does, I thank the Minister for his reply, particularly for what he said about an advisory group in relation to the new arrangements. I hope your Lordships will agree that the meeting last week with Charlie Taylor was a success. Certainly, the group I was with was impressed by the Government’s choice of adviser. I have met Bernadette Cunningham, who the Government have chosen to advise them on early years care. Her work with the Coram Family is well respected. Therefore, the Government’s track record in choosing advisers is a very good one so far.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, the TDA has undertaken excellent work in raising equality in schools. Recruitment from BME groups is important to ensure that white and BME pupils benefit from a more balanced representation of society. The experience of teachers from diverse groups is important. Therefore, I hope that the Minister can confirm that this policy will continue under the new body.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

My Lords, I question all three amendments. I do so because this is a thread running throughout the Bill. This is a Bill that is all about structures and yet more structures, without looking at the fundamental reason why we are having an Education Bill, which is to improve the lot of our young people, particularly those with the greatest needs.

In terms of SEN, we are moving back from what I thought was the direction of travel which occurred over the past two decades of having schools as inclusive organisations where all members of staff are continually engaged in training in order to meet the needs of children. My worry about these three amendments is that by simply ticking a box which says you have, say, eight or 20 hours of training, somehow that makes you an effective teacher of children with special educational needs. It does not. It might give you some of the rudimentary elements, and for that these amendments are certainly a welcome direction of travel. But in reality I am looking for the Minister to say what the Government intend to do who encounter children with special educational needs in every one of our schools—not simply our special schools and not simply those children who have a statement of special needs—to ensure that all teachers have a required level of teaching and engagement, the like of which, quite frankly, we have never seen in our schools sufficient to meet the needs of those children. That is what we should really be looking for in terms of amendments to the Bill.

I hope that the Minister will give some satisfaction not only to those who tabled the amendments but to the whole of the Committee in order that we can feel satisfied that after the Bill is passed, our children with special educational needs get a better deal than the one they are getting in the vast majority of our schools today.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I hesitate to speak, but the amendments raise very important issues about the teaching profession and the future professionalism of teaching. Will the Minister keep in mind what happened to social work? At one time it was a highly respected profession with high thresholds of entry, but those thresholds were lowered for various reasons. A short while ago one could get on to a social work course with a couple of Ds as qualification. The result has been a highly variable quality in social workers.

While I wish to be as flexible as possible to recruit the right people into teaching, it would be a backward step if we were to lower standards trying to do so. I look to the Minister for reassurance that that will not happen.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, this is a timely debate—only the week before last the department published its strategy for initial teacher training. That set out a vision for raising the quality of teachers, which I hope will address some of the concerns of my noble friend Lord Willis about how we might move forward. It also set out our plans to give schools more involvement in training. The reason for that is that schools are employers of teachers as well as places where trainees can learn from outstanding teachers. So we are keen that schools should form an important part of the mix of our system for recruiting and training new teachers. In saying that, and responding to my noble friend Lady Brinton, I assure noble Lords that the Government’s intention is certainly not to remove universities from teacher training. As the Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers document says:

“There is an important role for universities in any future ITT system. They provide trainees with a solid grounding in teaching, and space to reflect on their school experiences”.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

79: After Clause 18, insert the following new Clause—
“Nursery staff development
Where nurseries admit children of two years old, staff with direct responsibility for children are entitled to—
(a) two hours of one-to-one supervision with their managers, and(b) 10 hours of continual professional development,each month.”

[The Earl of Listowel]

In moving my Amendment 79, I wish to speak also to my Amendments 80 and 81. They are fairly self-explanatory and concern staff development in nurseries, nursery staff qualifications and nursery manager qualifications. We have already debated this area but I wish to impress on the Minister and Members of the Committee how vital it is for vulnerable children to have as much stability as possible in their early lives.

We are extending this entitlement to families, particularly disadvantaged families, and encouraging them to place their children in group settings at the age of two. Therefore, we need to think how we can ensure that that environment is stable and that their carers are as reliable and regular as possible. According to the 2008 child workforce paper, staff turnover was 16 per cent in daycare settings and 5 per cent in settings within primary schools. We do not have details—at least, I am not aware of them—of how much variation there is from that 16 per cent level. Sixteen per cent seems high to me, but some places may have staff turnover levels of 20 per cent or more. It seems to me that if staff were offered more training and development, we could prevent such a high turnover. The difficulty we find ourselves in—certainly this has been the case in the past—is that high levels of vacancies in nurseries make it difficult for these businesses to make a go of it. The chief costs to these businesses arise from staff training and development and staff pay. If they want to save money to stay in business and keep the service going, they have to target staff training and development.

In addition, the current economic climate is very challenging for all enterprises. My concern is that the training and development of these staff might be undermined. I know that even in these difficult financial circumstances much effort has been put into ensuring that that does not happen. However, I would like the Minister to give an undertaking that he will monitor where these two year-olds are going—whether they are going to satisfactory, good or outstanding settings—and publish that information. Could we be given better data on staff sickness absence rates and turnover rates in these settings so that we can better understand what is going on and the consequences for children’s stability? Perhaps Members of the Committee who are interested in this area and the government adviser, Bernadette Cunningham, could meet with the relevant person in Ofsted to discuss these issues with them.

Finally, I would like some information, if possible, from the Minister on whether he expects many of the leaders and managers in these settings to opt out from this graduate requirement. Can we expect most of these settings to continue to be graduate-led settings? I look forward to his response. I beg to move.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, briefly, I support the broad thrust of my noble friend's amendments because this is quite clearly an important stage of children's development. We have just had the second Frank Field report The Foundation Years: Preventing Poor Children Becoming Poor Adults, where again he emphasises that:

“The strategy should include a commitment that all disadvantaged children should have access to affordable full-time, graduate-led childcare from age two”.

I relate that also to the encouragement that the Government are, in my view, rightly making to encourage single parents and parents who have not been in work before to get into work—an additional need.

I of course accept that the exact number of hours may not be a possibility, but this is nevertheless an important area. It takes me back so many years to the beginning of nursery education. I always think of the noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, who was very unkindly known always as “Mrs Thatcher, milk snatcher” when she was in fact responsible, much more importantly, for the abolition of the Act that stopped local authorities opening nursery schools and classes. I remember being one of a group going to lobby her about that, all those years ago, but even in those pre-school playgroup days there was that argument about the extent to which people ought to train and be trained. I was not always entirely on the side of the belief that everyone should be trained. You were learning so much within the process, with the help of experts in this field, that many of that generation went on to be very involved in dealing in their children's education.

I make that as a background comment in view of the enthusiasms of all these people who have been commissioned. There is Frank Field, Graham Allen, who is doing yet another report, and I have forgotten the name of the woman—

--- Later in debate ---

I hope that those comments give the noble Earl some reassurance about our plans which, like many things we have been discussing in this Committee, are moving on outside the Bill on a number of fronts. I agree with him about the importance of the arguments he makes. In the light of that, I hope that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I thank the Minister for his helpful and careful reply and I thank my noble friend for sharing her experience in this area and for her encouragement. I much appreciate it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 79 withdrawn.

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[The Earl of Listowel]

66: After Clause 8, insert the following new Clause—
“Minimum qualifications for teachers
(1) To continue in practice or to take up new employment in a school, teachers must have—
(a) a minimum of 50 hours of continual professional development each year, and (b) such minimum qualifications in child development and behaviour management as specified by the Secretary of State.(2) Schools have a duty to ensure that the necessary continual professional development is provided.”

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 66, I will also speak to my Amendment 67. These are probing amendments, the purpose of which is to gain reassurance from the Minister about the entitlement of teachers to continuing professional development. Given that this is a changing environment, I would be grateful for reassurance about that entitlement.

In particular, if schools are taking more responsibility for the CPD of teachers, there must be clear funding for that in the future, given the need for consistency of CPD across education. As I hope noble Lords will agree, if we are to do well for our children, it is absolutely vital that our teachers are well supported in schools. If teachers do not get the support that they need through professional development, they are much more likely to burn out early. In addition, matters such as the inclusion of difficult pupils will be more difficult if teachers are not given the support that they need to give those pupils the necessary understanding and support.

When Professor Sir Michael Rutter, the renowned clinical psychologist, spoke some time ago at the British Psychological Society, he highlighted his concern that initial teacher training includes very little input about child development. In the past, there was some reference to child development, but it consisted of a rather dry few pages on Freud, Piaget and other theoreticians. The teachers to whom I speak say that they would prefer to learn about child development and about managing children’s behaviour a little while after they have started in practice with pupils, because they realise then the importance of understanding these things. It is very important to have a reflective workforce if we are to get the excellent outcomes for our children that we all want.

The bulk of teachers are already in the profession. Although we are looking at ensuring quality in teacher training and induction, most of our teachers are already in schools and many of our teachers are over 50 years old, so it is very important that we also attend to their continuing professional development. I look forward to my meeting tomorrow with Charles Taylor, the Government’s adviser on behaviour, who I think would probably agree with me—I hope that I am not being presumptuous—that it is very important for teachers to be able to depersonalise their interactions with their more challenging students so as not to take personally what may seem to the teacher to be a personal attack but which will very often be something to do with what is going on in the home environment.

It is also important that teachers are aware of developmental milestones, for reasons that many colleagues have given in the past. I hope we might also consider developing some of the best practice from the continent, whereby trainee teachers get to observe a child over a long period, take careful notes and share those observations with other teachers, and thereby learn about child development.

Another very helpful approach is that adopted by the child psychotherapist Emil Jackson and others who are working in 10 secondary schools in Brent, north London. They are working with groups of both school staff and head teachers, sitting with them and helping them to reflect on their relationships and the way that it is working in their classes. Another way of getting that understanding of child development into the teaching workforce is in allowing them a space in which they can sit with professionals such as child psychotherapists, clinical psychologists and child psychiatrists, particularly to discuss their more problematic pupils with them. That is very effective and has many benefits. I apologise for already speaking for rather too long to the Committee and beg to move my amendment.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, briefly, I agree very much that in-service training—CPD, as we call it—is hugely important for the teachers in our schools. However, I would say that we currently do that. Every school has to have five days of training. In some schools we still call them Baker days, from somebody we know. My concern is that that training has to be of the highest calibre. As often as not, it is merely a day when people can sort other issues and training does take place.

Also, Ofsted inspections have to look at the quality of training in schools. In terms of observing teachers, every teacher—unless they are newly qualified—has to have set performance and management targets and, as part of that, classroom observations have to take place so that every teacher has to be observed, for a maximum of two lessons per week. To answer the noble Earl directly, training takes place in schools for five days a week, but I am always concerned about quality and teachers are observed at least twice a year.

My third and final observation is that the training days can, however, be quite disruptive to pupils because schools take them at different times. Would it not be great if all schools in an area took their training days at exactly the same time, so that parents could prepare for that and it would not be to the detriment of our pupils?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Elton]

Very well. I would be grateful if my noble friend would turn his mind again to the question of the integration of the independent and state sectors, and co-operation between the two. I take it that there would be no philosophical objection to the private sector buying into the provision of these facilities, which he rightly says should not be given away free.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister warmly for his encouraging response, and I thank noble Lords for expressing sympathy at least for the principles behind the amendments—I am very grateful for that. I need to think more about costs, particularly for developing classroom observation. A number of noble Lords pointed out the cost of having teachers away from the class and of having teachers observing other teachers. I want to make sure that that is kept in mind.

Perhaps I might also briefly apologise for something that I said earlier in Committee about the early years workforce. I made some comments that I regret. It is widely recognised that capacity in that area is fairly low and I might have dwelt more on the very positive experience that I have had of meeting people who have a strong vocation in that area of work. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 66 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Both the current and proposed primary legislation enable the Government to allow more than one induction period to be served. However, under the previous Government this was not the case, and this Government have decided to continue the practice of the previous Government, so there has not been a change and the facility exists, if required.

Moving on, my noble friend Lord Lexden raised an important issue relating to induction in teaching schools. He indentifies a risk in the possibility of the same teaching school providing an individual’s initial teacher training and hosting their induction. I agree with my noble friend when he says that we must not allow this to be a loophole through which poorly trained teachers can enter the system. I can reassure your Lordships that only schools of the highest quality will be able to become teaching schools that provide ITT. They will need to be judged outstanding by Ofsted and pass a rigorous assessment, overseen by the National College, in order to become a teaching school. They will then need to go through the robust accreditation process that all ITT providers currently go through. If they are successful, their ITT provision will be subject to Ofsted inspection. There will be safeguards on the quality of induction in teaching schools by means of the independent appropriate body that oversees induction. I know we will come on to talk about that body in more detail when we move on to the next amendment, tabled by my noble friend, Baroness Perry of Southwark.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I beg the Minister’s pardon for interrupting her, but one point that I know concerns some head teachers very much is the status of those primary schools that currently have a status as a sort of teaching school. The head teacher whom I have in mind works in a very challenging area. Her school’s results in terms of educational attainment may not be so high, but it is recognised that she is doing a fantastic job in a very difficult area, where she works with some very challenged families. The concern is that, when the Government are setting parameters for the new teaching schools, they may not take enough cognisance of the huge progress that these head teachers have made with their pupils and will keep more in mind the bare bones of achievement in terms of academic attainment. I would be grateful if the Minister could reassure me that this will not be the case and that head teachers who make a huge difference to children coming from difficult challenging background will not be excluded from the teaching schools initiative.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, the schools will need to be judged outstanding by Ofsted, so there will be levels of academic attainment within that. However, we are in no way underrating the value of schools such as the one to which the noble Earl has referred. They may well be able, say, to work in partnership with a school that was rated outstanding, bringing the special skills they have developed in those very challenging schools to bear on the induction period.

Finally, let me turn to the issue of induction at British schools overseas, which was my noble friend’s other amendment. The British education sector overseas is growing rapidly. It appeals both to English-speaking expatriates and to local parents in many parts of the world, who want their children to have an education instilling British values and ethos. For those reasons, I agree with the noble Lord that British schools abroad should be able to offer induction.

In response to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland of Houndwood, there will be no impact at all on current arrangements between England and Wales and between England and Scotland—those will not change.

The good news is that primary legislation does in fact already allow this. These schools are legally independent schools, and independent schools are able to offer induction to their NQTs if they choose to do so, providing the teacher has QTS and the school can provide a suitable post. However, there is currently a legal barrier to this happening, in secondary legislation. Following our review of induction arrangements, I have therefore asked officials to ensure that proposed amendments to the induction regulations will include changes that allow certain British schools abroad—those that have been inspected under the British schools overseas arrangements and accredited by COBIS or other reputable British schools overseas organisations—to offer statutory induction to their NQTs.

I hope that my remarks have provided some reassurance to my noble friend Lord Lexden, and that he will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Elton]

Another class of people who deserve a second chance is those who fall over their shoelaces in the first term and lose the respect of children. They are never going to get that back in that school and will never get a fair trial. They need to go to another school and start again, where you may get a very good teacher out of the experience.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am sorry to trouble the Committee further, but I am still a little worried by the Minister’s response. I was grateful for what she said but I can see a situation where excellent head teachers working extremely hard in very challenging areas producing outstanding results do not get the credit due to them for doing that. It is far easier to get high academic results in a school in a leafy suburb than in an inner-city school. We risk denying our future teachers an experience of learning from an inspirational head in an inner city if these plans are not carefully balanced to ensure that there is a broad base of experience in these teaching schools and they are not situated predominantly in areas where it is easier to get high educational attainment. However, we need to aim always to get the highest educational attainment for all our children.

[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, my three amendments have precipitated a discussion on induction that has ranged rather more widely than I anticipated. I thank all those who have contributed to this wide-ranging discussion, including my noble friend Lord Lucas who rebuked me for my mean-mindedness. I will work on it and seek to correct it. I also thank the noble Baroness who spoke on behalf of the Government for the many reassurances that she gave, particularly for her comments about the expanded arrangements now in contemplation so that induction can be undertaken in British schools abroad. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

Perhaps I could ask a question as part of my response to these amendments. I was going to raise this in the previous debate. We talk about the figure of 15 who failed their initial teacher training, which appears to be very low. I am making an assumption that the selection procedure is not so perfect that it has this right. Before we bandy that figure around, perhaps the Minister might let us know how many students drop out, because sometimes there is a managed drop-out. I genuinely do not know the answer to that. That figure might also be very low. It might be useful to have a picture of how many start and finish as well as the statistic of the 15.

[The Earl of Listowel]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, reminds me of a meeting that I had with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and some head teachers a year or so ago. One subject that came up was mentoring. I am not sure whether it was the mentoring of newly qualified teachers or teachers in initial training. The head teachers were making the point to us that it is very important that the quality of their mentors is right. I forget the gradations, but perhaps they are outstanding, good and satisfactory teachers. The head teachers regretted the fact that sometimes teachers in initial training might be given just a satisfactory mentor when they should have a good or outstanding mentor. They may have been saying that they should have outstanding mentors all the time. Perhaps the Minister will bear that in mind. One way to improve outcomes in this area might be to ensure, more consistently, that the mentors are of the highest standard for people in initial training or their first year.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, as was clear in the previous group of amendments, I very much agree with my noble friend Lady Perry that we have to encourage the best teachers into the profession and support their professional development. I understand that the intention of her amendment is to ensure that only those teachers who are good enough to pass the induction should become full members of the teaching profession. I support that aim.

We have talked a little about the numbers. The figure of 15 is the correct figure but in response to the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, in terms of managed moves the figure is something like 10 per cent. That lends some credence to the point of the noble Baroness. Part of the process is that people drop out—the 15 who do not make it—but there are others who do not make it in a less apparent way.

Perhaps I can briefly set out the current arrangements for induction, although I thought that my noble friend Lord Storey gave some helpful observations on that. As he said, each NQT is provided with a tutor who is an experienced qualified teacher and their role is to mentor the NQT on a day-to-day basis, to observe their teaching practice throughout the year and to give them feedback. They contribute to formal assessments of NQTs, which take place each term. At the end of the year the NQT is judged on whether they have met the required standard to become a full member of the teaching profession. Schools do not make that final judgment; they have to work with the independent appropriate body, which has overall responsibility for ensuring that the induction is fair and rigorous and that the NQT gets the appropriate support. It can visit the school, speak to the head teacher and to NQTs to check up on progress. The independent appropriate body makes the final decision on whether the required standards are met, based on the assessments that have taken place over the year and the recommendation of the head teacher.

Arguably, no set of arrangements is absolutely perfect. We are currently looking at induction and, if my noble friend has any individual cases of appropriate bodies not maintaining the required standards, I would be keen to meet her to discuss the issue further. In any case, it might be helpful if I could arrange a meeting for her with the Schools Minister with responsibility for this area just so that we can tease out some of these issues a bit further.

Induction arrangements are just one element of the Government’s overall reforms, the key aim of which is to raise the quality of new entrants by toughening entry requirements and by investing more in attracting the best graduates. We hope that that will improve the quality of NQTs entering induction in the first place, which seems to me to be the key issue. I believe that, taken together, our reforms are more likely to achieve the increase in quality that we all seek than would be achieved by the introduction of a new check—to check the checkers, as it were—into arrangements that already feature an independent appropriate body. However, I understand the points that my noble friend made and I would welcome the opportunity to discuss the matter further by asking that she raise her concerns with the appropriate Minister. On that basis, I hope that she will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

Yes, it would be rather like driving tests being administered by the driving instructor.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Can I trouble the Minister just a little further? I was grateful for his response about ensuring that there is a high-quality mentor for trainees. If he had a little bit of time to drop me a note on how the mentors will be selected—both for the teachers in initial teacher training and for those in the qualified teacher year—I would be grateful to him for that.

[Baroness Sharp of Guildford]

I, too, apologise for intervening at this point, but there is one issue on which I would be grateful to have a little bit of clarification. My noble friend the Minister talked about the substantial changes that are being made in teacher training provision. The biggest change is the switch from training teachers in ITT settings, within a higher education environment, to training teachers within schools. Am I right in thinking that there is no legislation—certainly there is nothing in the Bill—that covers that change? Does it require legislation?

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am hopeful that my noble friend will answer the question that I asked him at Second Reading on the statistics behind this. I think that he quoted a figure of 600 pupils a year being reinstated. For the average secondary school, that is one every 10 years. What proportion of them are children who, it is accepted by everybody, have actually committed the sort of crimes that must mean their exclusion from school, such as serious bullying or drugs or bringing knives in? I am aware that a case was mentioned in the Sun a few years ago, but are there more than that? Why are we unbalancing the scales of justice to deal with such a tiny and infrequent problem?

My noble friend has already outlined the right approach, which is to make schools responsible for the future of the kids they choose to exclude, because most exclusions are due to problems with the school, not the kids. The example that I would choose is St George’s in Maida Vale. When I first got interested in schooling it was unbelievably awful, with children running around corridors and abusing and hitting teachers. There was a total paucity of education going on. It was the school, as noble Lords will remember, where the headmaster was murdered at the gates. Last year, it received grade 1 from Ofsted, with the same intake and no exclusions. Nothing has changed with the kids, but everything has changed with the school. That is what we should bear in mind when we think of exclusion as a punishment following something done by the kid, rather than as something caused by other people that is being demonstrated in what the kid is doing.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I remember sitting in a school classroom in a secondary school that is five minutes’ walk from your Lordships' House and seeing one boy disrupt the whole class and the poor teacher clearly at the end of her tether at the end of the period. The boy moved to a different seat as soon as she turned her back, and it was a great joke, but it clearly caused her a lot of anxiety.

This is a very complex question, as this debate has shown. Further to what the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, said, in my experience many looked-after children have families who are not working well before they are taken into care. However, after that, the key stepping stone into care is their exclusion from school, which puts all the additional pressure on the family that the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, referred to. Excluding a child is a very grave step to take without the right means to ensure that the child goes somewhere appropriate, where they will get the support that they need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Elton]

May I ask a couple of questions of my noble friend? First, he referred throughout to permanent exclusion. The word “permanent” does not seem to appear in the text of the legislation. The direction was given to the Secretary of State in setting out the regulations, leaving it open to him to decide what sort of an exclusion the panel might make a judgment on. I assume there are important administrative reasons to minimise the appeals as well as practical ones. If it is an exclusion for a week or a fortnight, it will be over before the appeal is heard. For permanent exclusion, that is a different matter. Secondly, I would like to ask the question the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, was expected to ask and did not: what is to become of pupils excluded from a PRU, particularly if there is only one PRU available in an area? Thirdly, I am puzzled not to have received representations—I may be unique in this—from the head teachers’ organisations and I wondered whether they had expressed a view.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the Minister replies to those questions, perhaps it might be helpful to ask another question for information. How do the numbers of exclusions break down between primary schools and secondary schools? He may already have mentioned that but I would be grateful for that information.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

On that specific point, I do not have those figures in my head and I will try to find them and send them to the noble Earl. In response to my noble friend’s first question, the new arrangements are intended to apply to permanent exclusions. So far as his other points are concerned—again, they are generally not in the Bill—in terms of the way forward with the exclusion trials and with a point that we are trying to take forward and which we will come to later on about improving the quality of alternative provision available, the responsibility for a child in the situation he describes is unchanged and remains with the local authority.

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I am also concerned that the removal of the duty could reduce parents’ ability to get access to support for a child with behavioural problems. Those resources just will not be available to individual schools in the same way. There is a danger of cutting parents out of that system. I shall not detain the Committee for very long on this, but not because it is not important—it is very important. The issues are very clear, particularly when we put this in the context of some of the other measures proposed in the Bill. I shall be interested to hear the Minister’s response. This is not a negative duty on schools; it is a positive duty that promotes collaboration and partnership over some of the most difficult behavioural and disciplinary issues that schools must deal with. It means that they are not on their own in dealing with them and that they can develop local responses in an area across a group of schools, which is very positive.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, has just said. It seems eminently reasonable to support such a mode of working—of sharing the burden of the most difficult children among a group of schools. From speaking to head teachers, I have not experienced that model. However, I have spoken to the head teacher who was responsible for something called the Greater Manchester Challenge in the Greater Manchester area. It gathered together teachers and head teachers in Manchester to support each other. I understand that there is something similar in Greater London. This, perhaps, was one of the strengths of the previous Government. One of the good things that they brought forward was a mode of encouraging heads to work together to produce better outcomes for children.

One sees that the new coalition Government are moving in the opposite direction. There is a lot that we will support in that. Perhaps we can all support greater autonomy and respect for individual professionals, but I would be very sad if, in the process of that move, we went from one extreme to another and we lost some of the good things that came out in the years of work that the previous Government put in. To my mind, it would be very sad to lose that co-operation and recognition that some problems are bigger than any one school can deal with.

The Minister may say that there are new modalities in developing these sorts of collaborative approaches. I recall what his noble friend Lady Ritchie said in the previous Committee session when she expressed concern, as the person responsible within the Local Government Association for the safeguarding of children, that the academies programme has given rise to concerns about fragmentation. There is a swing in the pendulum from one extreme to another. Some really good things came out from the previous swing in the direction of collaborative working, and I should be grateful to the Minister if he can reassure the Committee—as I am sure that he will—that he recognises the importance of schools working together to deal with these issues, and say what new mechanisms he is helping to bring into place to make it work for children in the future.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I shall speak very briefly in support of the amendment because it is perhaps one of the most important that we will discuss in Committee. I know that we can return to the issue at a later stage. I very much support what my noble friend Lady Hughes said—out of all the obligations that schools have been freed from, this is probably one of the most important to discuss. My reasons for saying that are twofold. I completely accept the need for schools to be independent and I acknowledge and recognise that the Government are working to push that agenda as far as they can. Can the Minister say whether the Government also accept the need for schools to be interdependent? Does he understand the concept that sometimes schools cannot do well for their own children because they are not interdependent with other schools in the system?

If the Government accept that, I have a second question. Of all the things that schools can do, the thing that can most harm a neighbouring school is the exclusions policy. That is what makes exclusions different than a lot of other things. I am sure that the Minister and the Government fully understand that the actions of one school can make it difficult for another to raise standards. That is the powerful case for leaving there the obligation and duty to be part of the partnership. It is, first, about the interdependency of schools as well as the independence and, secondly, it is about understanding that the actions of one school can be very detrimental to the ability of the other to raise standards. Will the Minister reflect on that in her response?

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[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, having made clear my general support for the concept of the GTC at Second Reading, I will quickly make three points. The noble Lord, Lord Quirk, kindly mentioned the upsurge of support that occurred in independent schools, with which I was then connected as general secretary of the Independent Schools Council. It was marked and reflected many things, but above all it was in response to the quite extraordinary enthusiasm and determination with which the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam went about the initial work of laying the foundations for the GTC.

Secondly, I emphasise on behalf of independent schools, with which I remain informally connected, the importance that they attach to the maintenance of the register in any circumstances which may exist in the future. Finally, I make the simple observation that there will be a GTC in Scotland, a GTC in Wales and a GTC in Northern Ireland. Will it not look very odd not to have a GTC for England?

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, having for some years taken an interest in the low status of professionals working around children, particularly the low status of social workers, I have always been drawn to the model used in the health service and in the law. Senior practitioners in the health service very much have the responsibility for bringing on new blood, having an impact on the supervision and development of juniors. There is the same approach, particularly in law, with pupillage. It is retrograde to move away from a position where teachers were perhaps beginning to take more control over their continual professional development. The GTC might have allowed for that. As all noble Lords have said, it seems extremely ironic and strange when the Secretary of State says that teachers are the key to improving outcomes above all things and then takes away the professional body for teachers without offering a strong replacement. I look forward to the noble Lord’s response.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, on the status of the teaching profession, I agree with everything that has been said. The issue that we are debating today is whether professionalism can be captured only in some national regulatory body or whether it can be found in other parts of the wood.

I was very struck at Second Reading when the noble Lord, Lord Knight, spoke of the success of Teach First as being great achievement of the previous Government. He could have spoken about the work of National Leaders of Education or Local Leaders of Education, or the work of the National College, which are all very good examples of professionals working to raise standards and help other professionals. He could have mentioned the growing numbers of academies taking on responsibility for helping other schools in chains or clusters. Those all seem to be aspects of a profession taking responsibility for itself. I may be wrong because I was not around at the time, but I am not sure how prominent the role of the GTCE was in taking forward Teach First, National Leaders or partnership working between schools. Having a national body of that sort does not deliver professionalism, raise standards or deal with important issues about continuous professional development. The Government believe that we need a regulatory system that is credible, effective and provides value for money—I think that there is acceptance for that today.

I do not take any particular pleasure in the ending of the GTCE. I know that it was started with high hopes and that there were many who had wanted it, as we have already heard, from the 19th century. The noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, both today and at Second Reading, spoke eloquently of the practical problems that it faced at its birth—I think that the phrase he used at Second Reading to describe his appointment was “hospital pass”. However, what is clear—I do not want to labour this too much—is its record. Since the GTCE was formed in 2000, nearly two-thirds of local authorities have never referred a case of incompetence to it, despite employers having a statutory duty to do so. Since 2001, the GTCE has concluded only 82 competence hearings and struck off 15 teachers for incompetence. The majority of our teachers, we know, are highly competent professionals, and we would not question that, but it seems unlikely that in the whole 10 years there have been only 15 incompetent teachers.

One fact that struck me as evidence of the attitude of teachers towards the GTCE was the point raised by my noble friend Lord Lingfield; that is, of the modest £36.50 annual registration fee, the taxpayer has to subsidise £33. That does not seem to be a very powerful sign of a profession that feels strongly about the role that the GTCE performs.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, made reference the views of the NASUWT. I recognise that its views can change over time, and they clearly did, because the general secretary of the NASUWT has said:

“I have frequently said that if the GTCE was abolished tomorrow few would notice and even less would care. I have absolutely no doubt that the Secretary of State’s decision will be warmly welcomed by teachers across the country”.

The key question is that posed by the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam; namely, what should replace the GTCE if one accepts that it has not delivered in the way that he and others had hoped at its beginning?

Perhaps I may set out what we are proposing. It is, in essence, the following. A smaller, more cost-effective body, the teaching agency, would deal only with matters of misconduct. Hearings would be heard by a panel made up of representatives of the profession and independent lay people, with a right of appeal, as now, to the High Court.

Issues of incompetence would be dealt with separately. I have always thought that the GTC’s current sanction for incompetence was a surprisingly nuclear option. Rather than a slow, cumbersome process that led painfully to a national process and ultimately—for 15 teachers—to barring from the profession, we think it would be better to have a much more flexible, local system whereby issues are resolved more quickly. We can all think of people who have not made a go of it with one employer, but who flourished somewhere else. We are therefore keen to move to a system with all the same protections in employment legislation whereby employers can exercise judgment, address problems more swiftly, and help teachers to improve.

We have been carrying out a review of the professional standards for teachers, which will give employers clearer national benchmarks for performance and conduct. We are currently consulting on simplified arrangements for performance management and tackling poor capability. That will streamline the system and remove the current duplication that employers have found is a barrier to tackling performance issues. We will also strengthen the training and support available to school leaders, so that head teachers and aspiring heads are better prepared for their management role through a revised national professional qualification for headship. We think that these measures will leave the powers to deal with teacher incompetence in a more appropriate place and help head teachers to exercise those powers more effectively than the current regulatory system does.

So far as conduct is concerned, none of this is to say that we think there is no role for a national regulator. On the contrary, we are clear that where teachers are guilty of serious misconduct, they should be referred to the national regulator for potential barring from the profession. That mechanism is cumbersome for head teachers and the regulator, because every case where a teacher is sacked for misconduct must be referred, even though the vast majority of these cases do not warrant barring. The new arrangements will be more effective by giving employers discretion, while still ensuring that the most serious cases are referred. Where cases are referred to the regulator, the Bill gives the Secretary of State a new power to make interim prohibition orders. This power was always intended for use in the very rare cases where it is in the public interest to bar an individual from teaching while an investigation is under way. Amendments 64AA, 65A 65B and 65C have been tabled by the Government in response to your Lordships’ Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee’s recommendations that the safeguard for this power be put in the Bill.

Noble Lords have asked for reassurance that the element of discretion that we are introducing will not lead to a weaker and less consistent system. It is of course important that the new system protects pupils and maintains confidence in the teaching profession. Let me say straightaway that the proposals make no change to the duty on all schools to refer any cases of serious misconduct relating to children to the Independent Safeguarding Authority.

I should also draw your Lordships’ attention to the fact that the Bill provides for referrals to the Secretary of State from members of the public. Where a parent or other member of a community disagrees with the judgment of a head teacher who has not referred a teacher dismissed for serious misconduct, they may make the referral themselves. This provides a further safeguard that teachers in the most serious cases will not in some way slip through the net.

I turn to the important issue of the Register of Teachers, which a number of noble Lords raised, including the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, my noble friend Lady Jolly, the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. The Government said in another place that we would consider the arguments in favour of making available data about teacher qualifications. We have listened to what the head teachers’ unions have said—that point was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. I have also listened to the case eloquently made today by noble Lords, particularly by my noble friend Lord Willis of Knaresborough. It is right to say that the teaching agency will maintain a database of teachers who have attained qualified teacher status and who have passed their induction period. That seems to be an eminently sensible point and we will take it on board. That database will be available online to employers from April 2012.

Some amendments concerning surveys and statistics—CPD and so on—were spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch. The Government will continue to commission research and to support the effective management, assessment, planning and development of the teaching profession. We are in the process of considering what the data and research needs of the new teaching agency and the department will be.

The CPD part of the GTCs’ work is currently shared with the TDA, and in future work on CPD will form part of the remit of the new teaching agency. However, as I have already said, over time we would tend to see more and more of that work being delivered by schools.

With regard to some of the more technical issues, the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Whitchurch, raised the question of information-sharing between the GTCs in the devolved Administrations. Officials in the department recently met their counterparts and the GTCs from Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland to discuss this issue. We have an agreed approach to sharing information between the four nations and will continue to meet regularly to discuss that.

On cash reserves, I agree with the noble Baroness that, if money was originally paid to the GTCE for the benefit of teachers and some of that money is still available, it should continue to be used for a similar purpose. If there were any cash reserves, we would use them for the benefit of teachers and the teaching profession—for example, to contribute to the continuing administration of the regulatory function, which a large proportion of the GTCE’s fees was spent on.

I recognise that my answer is disappointing to the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam. I never like to disappoint the noble Lord, for whom I have great respect. I hope that what I have been able to say about the register will provide some reassurance to noble Lords who I know were concerned and that, taken together, my response will enable the noble Lord, Lord Puttnam, to withdraw his amendment.

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

Perhaps I could briefly make two comments on this very difficult issue. First, I hope your Lordships might agree that this highlights the importance of teachers and their development and their need to be highly reflected practitioners—not to get drawn into emotional situations but to have that professional capacity to stand back and be dispassionate. I very much welcome what the Minister is doing to help teachers to reflect on their practice with young people.

I spoke with a head teacher of an EBD school recently. He described a particular situation on a school outing. One of the children picked up a piece of glass on the beach, perhaps, and put it in his pocket, and the teacher was told about it by one of the school children and acted very quickly to search the child and take it away. For schools or institutions that deal with high numbers of children with challenging behaviour issues, it might be helpful for teachers to have this discretion. The head teacher’s point was that it was very important for teachers to be able to exercise their discretion and not feel inhibited by too much regulation in the background. I do not have particular experience in that area, but I share it because I heard it recently from a head teacher.

[Lord Storey]

I understand noble Lords’ concerns about crises, but I want to paint a different picture. In most situations, there will be teaching assistants in the classroom and learning mentors—a whole plethora of support staff who can support a particular situation. If there is a crisis, the best way to deal with it is not to provoke the situation further but to calm everything down. My concern is that if a teacher carries out this act by themselves and no one else is present, it could put them at risk. I can see all sorts of legal actions being taken whereby pupils, particularly at secondary school level, make allegations about what the teacher did to them. The police and law courts might become involved and it might become an absolute nightmare for schools and schooling, so I understand the concern about the crisis that might occur, but I am equally concerned about the well-being of the individual teacher and pupil. To put that teacher in that situation is potentially quite dangerous.

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[Lord Sutherland of Houndwood]

My Lords, the question of evidence is close to my heart, having chaired the Science and Technology Select Committee. I absolutely agree that we should achieve an evidence-based policy. Seldom do we do so, but we ought to.

My question is simply this. If there is no evidence that this is needed, is there evidence that training is needed, in the many other provisions of the Bill? We are all very strong on the importance of training. I am just concerned about having blanket legislation that could rule out the unforeseeable—and I think we have accepted that just occasionally some teachers have experienced that.

[The Earl of Listowel]

In response to the noble Baroness’s remarks, I gave the example of a head teacher of an EBD school, who described a school trip to the seaside when the boy picked up a piece of glass. The teacher thought, “This boy is rather dangerous and it is dangerous for him to have that glass in his pocket—the best thing to do is to quickly check his pocket and get rid of it”. That may be an exceptional circumstance, but I can imagine that in working with those particular groups that might be when those exceptional circumstances came into play.

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[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, childhood lasts a lifetime. Whatever children go through at an early age will stay with them for ever. Children’s well-being should be at the heart of everything we do in society. It should begin at home, but that is not always the case. However, it definitely needs to happen at school. Today, many children face difficulties in their lives. For some, life is like a marathon; it is relentless and the challenges that they face are unbearable. Some even die because of those challenges. The children who are victims and who are vulnerable need schools to support them. Schools have a duty to help them through the traumas that they might be going through by having strategies in place to cement the solid foundation needed to address children and young people’s well-being.

Many schools have such strategies in place and take this responsibility seriously. I visit schools up and down the country to give inspirational talks to children and young people. I often identify children and young people who need support, and discover what they might be going through mentally, physically and emotionally. It is so rewarding to know that you can make a difference to a young person’s life by giving them support and making sure that their well-being is addressed. It is the responsibility of us all to make sure that this happens time and again. We should have joined-up policies to make sure that it does. I fully support the amendments in the names of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker. If we can do this, we will do a just service to our children and our young people across the country.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Laming for tabling these amendments. I have just one quick question for the Minister, following on from the question of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, who talked about the impact on children with special educational needs. What does he think the impact might be on children in the care of local authorities? In principle, I can see that outcomes might be improved if there is at least a strategy that involves schools working with local authorities and thinking about how children’s homes and foster carers could be better meshed into the system.

Schools already have various duties with regard to looked-after children, but this might be another means of promoting outcomes for them. I should be grateful to the Minister if he circulated some copies of the plans for children and young people. I suppose it would be fairly easy for me to find those plans in the Library, but I should be interested to see how they work. I recognise the Minister’s drive to reduce bureaucracy, and I wonder whether the legislation is perhaps going a bit too far in trying to right that wrong.

Finally, I share the noble Baroness’s concern about the academies process. There are many positive sides to it, but there is the danger of schools becoming atomised, and the process would seem to add to that risk. I look to the Minister for reassurance in his reply.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I apologise for being absent for much of this debate. I have an amendment in this grouping, Amendment 52A, and I would like to speak to it briefly if I may. It states:

“A review panel may, following a review under this section, direct the Office for Standards in Education, Children’s Services and Skills to undertake an inspection of the school concerned”.

I hope that the amendment has not been degrouped from this grouping of amendments.

The Minister was kind enough to write to me with some information about the review of Ofsted. I understand that it is looking for new triggers for inspections and I tabled the amendment in order to probe the Minister on whether this might be one way of doing so. It may not be to direct but to encourage Ofsted to inspect a school that has excluded a child. Having spoken recently with a head teacher who sat on a panel dealing with young people who had been excluded, it seems to me that a small number of children are put back into the system and that it is a necessary check. The Minister knows how much sympathy I have for his push to give more autonomy to schools and the professionals working in them.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, exclusion should be the last resort, a statement with which everyone here wholeheartedly agrees. There was agreement on that when we discussed it on Tuesday and it was a message that I received clearly from the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children, which I was lucky enough to meet last week, and it has been reiterated again today.

Therefore, in responding to this group of amendments, I want to start backwards with Amendment 54 spoken to by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and the case for trialling a new approach to exclusions. In our White Paper, published last year, we set out our plans for such a trial. It is worth rehearsing our objectives because this goes so much to the heart of what we have discussed today on exclusions. They are to encourage early intervention; to address behavioural problems and their causes; to keep pupils in their schools wherever possible; and, if it is not possible, to ensure that they receive high-quality education elsewhere. It is worth restating that because it comes down to a point that we debated previously—that the way in which legislation is drafted means that one often starts the discussion back to front. I want to emphasise clearly that our objective, which I know is shared by everyone here, is that exclusions should be absolutely the last resort and the drive of government policy going forward will be to try to find ways of avoiding it.

We know that some areas have already made a lot of progress in this area of the kind referred to by the noble Baroness. Cambridgeshire has devolved responsibility for all its alternative provision to clusters of schools, and they are given a share of the local authority’s budget to spend and are allowed to keep the savings. It has seen a reduction of about two-thirds in the number of pupils referred to PRUs by secondary schools. At the all-party group meeting last week, we heard also about Devon. There is clearly good practice out there from which we are keen to learn.

In the trial areas, a school that excludes a pupil will then have to find and fund an alternative full-time placement. That relates to the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Warnock. Knowledge of the pupil’s needs and history should assist in finding the most appropriate provision. Some of the funding currently retained by local authorities for alternative provision would be delegated to schools for this purpose. That is the idea of the trials. More than 50 local authorities have expressed an interest in taking part in the trial and we are finalising plans for it to start this autumn, involving between 15 and 18 local authorities. Officials are discussing the final details with those schools, and we hope and believe that this large trial will enable us to identify and work through all the issues, find solutions and modify our approach should that prove necessary.

Amendment 54 seeks to legislate now for that approach. I am sure that its purpose is to provide an opportunity for this debate. However, our view is that we need first to have discussions with head teachers and other people with know-how in this area and that we should not rush into legislation on this matter. We hope that the trials will start in the autumn and run for two or three years. We do not need legislation for the trials, but having learnt from them we will then legislate if we need to. That is something that my honourable friend Sarah Teather is running with.

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[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, perhaps I may ask my noble friend a couple of questions. First, I should be very interested in being included if he is telling people about the trials. The important thing is that they focus on the distillation—on the kids at the end who do not respond at the beginning to whatever is done. They are the ones who are abandoned at the end of the system. They are allotted four hours’ tuition at home but that does not happen and people forget about them. I very much hope that, as is the case with prisons, organisations are given money on the basis of the results that they achieve. We may try that at the back end of some of the trials so that innovative ideas are encouraged in rescuing these children who have proved difficult to educate.

Secondly, am I right in understanding that, when a school is concerned that a pupil may have special educational needs which may be causing problems, it has the absolute right to require and obtain the assessment when it is needed, rather than, as in the current system, waiting for the LEA to decide that it is prepared to do it?

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply to my amendment. I am pleased to hear that he is thinking of amending guidance in this way and I thank him.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I think that once more it falls to me to don the mantle of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, albeit I cannot possibly do it justice. I am most grateful to all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I should like to make just a few points.

I was very grateful to the noble Baronesses, Lady Finlay and Lady Howells, in particular, for reminding us that children are not just excluded because they are naughty; there are many underlying factors. The noble Baroness, Lady Howells, reminded us that it could be, at worst, racism or, at best, a misunderstanding of the behaviour of certain cultural groups. The noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, reminded us that the child might be responding to a terrible trauma in their lives such as bereavement. I remind the Committee that sometimes children behave as though they have been bereaved when their parents split up. A parent has not died but is no longer in the child’s life and the child responds in that way. Therefore, we have to look at the underlying factors, whether they are the ones I have just mentioned or the SEN factors that many noble Lords have referred to.

It is particularly important that parents have confidence in the system of exclusion and the system of appeals. In that respect, I certainly support Amendment 52 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig. Parents should be able to choose their own SEN adviser. Only then will they have real confidence in the advice to the appeals tribunal.

I am grateful to the Minister, as I am sure the noble Lords, Lord Touhig and Lord Rix, would be, for saying that the guidance will be made statutory. I am also grateful to him, following something I said at Second Reading, for making it possible for me to meet Charlie Taylor. He is supervising the pilots where schools retain responsibility, in terms of both the financial bottom line and academic achievement, for where they place a child who might otherwise be excluded. It sounds like a very interesting innovation, which I gather will probably go on for two or three years. I am delighted to hear that the Government have undertaken to implement that sort of arrangement more widely if it proves helpful in preventing children being excluded in an unwarranted and inappropriate way.

Finally, on Amendment 43, I am grateful to the Minister for saying that the guidance will be revised. Will he ensure that children themselves can appeal against exclusion in their own right, as they can now do to SENT? That is, will they be able to appeal against an exclusion to the independent appeals panels in the same way that they can to SENT? Perhaps the Minister will write to me about that. I know it is a fairly new situation, but for me and others it is an important “rights of the child” issue.

On behalf of the noble Lord, Lord Rix, I thank the Minister for all his responses to the debate and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Education Bill

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support the principles behind my noble friend’s amendments. I pay tribute to the Government for the carefully thought through process that they have begun and for beginning the various reviews—the Tickell review, the Frank Field review, the Graham Allen review—that are proving so helpful now. They highlight and raise the status of early intervention. We have talked for many years, thanks to my noble friend Lord Northbourne, about the importance of early intervention, yet people working in that area are still often the poorest-paid and lowest-status people in this country. The work of my noble friend and others is, I hope, beginning to raise that status. We will hear more about that later in this debate.

I wanted to ask the Minister about the workforce around the child more generally. The previous Government developed a children’s workforce strategy, which was led by Maggie Atkinson, now the Children’s Commissioner. My concern is that for children in their early years, unless one thinks through very carefully what support they and their parents need, one may miss out important branches. For instance, the previous Government were very keen to support children in their early development; they introduced Sure Start and various other measures such as the family nurse partnerships, which this Government are carrying on. These are very welcome, but I spoke with a health visitor in north London who told me, “We haven’t been able to fund our general service for health visitors because the money has been going into family nurse partnerships and Sure Start centres”. So, if one does not have a strategy, the danger is that one can have some very good ideas but Peter ends up robbing Paul. One needs to have some sort of overarching strategy, particularly with regard to the workforce because that takes time to train and develop. I would appreciate a note from the Minister at some point on the Government’s strategy for the children’s workforce.

On the matter of parents and parental support, I am reminded of a visit to a primary school in a deprived area of Windsor, more in the Slough area, that had a large number of children from Traveller families, many of whose parents could not read. The head teacher asked the parents to make a little mark to show that their child had spent half an hour at home doing their homework; the parents did not have to read or help the child, but they ensured that the child sat down and did some work. It is absolutely right that we do all that we can to enable schools to work with parents. Probably the most important thing in my education was the fact that my father sat down and read stories to me, my brother and sister sitting together. That is crucial.

I wonder whether inspection is the best way through. I welcome the push that the Government are making to develop the teaching workforce. The head teacher at Lent Rise, whom I mentioned, was so ingenious in what she did. If we recruit the best people into teaching and give them the best possible training and continual professional development, perhaps they will come up with methods of ensuring that they work with parents—as difficult as that often is.

[Lord Laming]

My Lords, I will not detain the Committee for more than a moment. I will speak in support of the first part of the amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. Over the years, we have received report after report—mention has been made of the latest reports by Clare Tickell, Graham Allen and Frank Field—about the importance of early years. Mention has been made of the development of the child's brain. While all the reports are welcome, our record of putting in place the wherewithal to implement the lessons from these reports has not always been good.

The previous Government deserve great credit for the Sure Start scheme. I hope that the Minister will say something encouraging about the continuation of schemes of that kind. The great thing about those schemes is that they are without stigma. Local authorities organised a variety of ways of helping young families. Some of those arrangements were very stigmatised because they were only for children from problem families. Sure Start broke the mould and encouraged all parents to develop their parental skills, learn the benefits of education through play and recognise the importance of child development. I hope that in the spirit of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, the Minister will say something encouraging about where the Government hope to go in making a practical response to the importance of a child’s early years.

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[Lord Elton]

I urge my noble friend to bear it in mind, and particularly to have it borne in the minds of those drafting the document he promises for telling parents what they can expect in the way of help, that the parents of children we are most urgently wanting to help will have a reading age not much above that of the children. The document must be drafted with an expert eye on the comprehension of the reader.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before my noble friend replies, I thank him for the news of the statement this summer and I join the noble Lord, Lord Elton, in asking whether the draftsmen might keep a couple of points in mind. One is the importance of midwives, whom I omitted to mention. In my experience, if a midwife can make a relationship with a mother, particularly a vulnerable mother, there can be many beneficial results in terms of breastfeeding, for example. I am afraid that midwives often feel almost as if they are working in a factory; there is a very mixed experience across this country of what it is to be a midwife.

There is also concern about family support workers because of the cuts in funding to local authorities. I understand that local authorities are living up to their requirements with regard to child protection; they are focusing on the area that is most critical, but there is concern that funding for family support workers is being cut back. It would be good to have information on how that role is being impacted by the recession. Family support workers provide a crucial service for the most vulnerable families, as I am sure your Lordships will agree. I am sure that this will be a part of the statement in any case.

[Lord Ramsbotham]

May I say how much I welcome the announcement of the foundation years document? Will we have a chance to discuss it in the context of this Bill?

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[Lord Laming]

My Lords, there is only one thing that I want to ask the Minister about this. Everything in the Bill is to be welcomed and I strongly support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, has been saying to the Committee. I just wonder what mechanisms the Government are going to employ to ensure that the benefits are going to be felt by those children who come from homes where the parents are least motivated to take advantage of what is in the Bill. In other words, I do not think that we need to worry too much about the highly motivated parents but we need to worry a great deal about the children of the families where the parents have not seen the value of taking advantage of what is in the Bill.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, my name is attached to Amendment 10 in this group, on Sure Start children’s centres. I share the view of all your Lordships, I am sure, about the importance of quality of staff, especially when working with vulnerable children in these important early formative years. I look forward to hearing reassurances from the Minister on that point.

I have a wider point about the qualifications of those working with children in the early years, especially if we are encouraging parents to give their two year-old children to these settings. These are very young children at a formative stage of their development. Visiting a children’s centre recently, I was introduced to two young women who had just started. They may well make great Sure Start workers but one of things that the manager had to do, and said that she would be doing, was teach them to speak English. Their accents were so strong—they had not had the best of educations; I think that that is what I am trying to communicate. Because of the low status of the work, women who are attracted to it—and it normally is women—quite often may have had bad life experiences themselves. They need to be carefully chosen and very well supported in these settings

I am led to think about recent reports about care of the elderly, residential care and the care of adults with learning difficulties in residential care. I may be wrong, but we seem to have a problem in this country with giving priority to the workforce working with vulnerable adults or children. I do not know how we manage to do it, but somehow we seem to miss the point that this is the most important job in this society, and we need to attract the best people and reward them correctly. In those cases that related to residential care for the elderly and adult learning, we saw some of the difficulties of relying on inspections, which we rely on heavily to ensure quality. Inspection has an important role, but I imagine that most of your Lordships would agree that recruiting and retaining the best people is the best way to ensure that people are well cared for.

I was speaking on Friday to the manager of a residential care setting for young people. She said that in her experience there was such pressure to cut costs that she was always having to pay people less and reduce the amount of training that she could give them. I understand that the market of early-years provision and nurseries is predominantly a private one. While there are many wonderful private foster care providers, for instance—run perhaps by people who are disillusioned from working in social services by the way that their discretion was fettered and have set up their own company to give a better service for vulnerable young people—it is also the case that some of these companies come to be run by people who have a very close focus on what profit can be made and do not give enough regard to the practitioners and their advice on what direction should be taken.

I am going some way from the amendments, for which I apologise, but this whole issue of quality and the qualifications of the workforce is, to my mind, vital, as is stability. If one has a workforce whose members are not well paid and are not properly trained, it is hardly surprising that there is a high turnover of staff. The key principle that we all recognise young children need, especially very young children, is stability and stable relationships with carers.

My noble friend Lady Massey talked about the impact on children’s emotional development and brain development of not having a stable relationship in their early years. Evidence from research shows that where staff are poorly paid and poorly funded, and there is a high turnover of these young women, the children do not get the opportunity to build a relationship with their carers. In each nursery there is supposed to be a key person for each child. That key person is supposed to carry forward a relationship with that child when the parent is absent and keep that child in mind, perhaps change the child’s nappies and give the child food; that is, pay particular attention to that child. However, given that workers work shifts it is difficult to make that emotional investment in young children; if they do, staff feel distraught when the children leave.

A foster carer who works with young babies recently told me that she cares for young babies who are addicted to heroin, sees them through the first year or so and then has to pass them on to somebody else. It breaks her heart each time she does it. We are asking workers in these settings to act as parents for several hours a day for a long period and they become attached to these children. Unless one supports them in that, they will avoid that attachment. They will sit down with their friends and talk about what they did on a Saturday night, but they will not be thinking about these children.

This is such an important issue that we should insist on entry thresholds that are as high as possible and support the staff working in early years, especially as we are now encouraging parents to put their two year-olds into such care. We should set good clear minimum qualification standards, particularly in Sure Start centres.

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In responding at some length to the points raised, I hope that I have been able to reassure noble Lords that the Government are committed to the early years, continuing the maintenance of the universal offer to three and four year-olds. Through that offer and our continued commitment to Sure Start children’s centres, we will make progress. I hope that the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Baroness replies, can I pick up two or three points in what the Minister said? To begin, I again warmly welcome the Government’s commitment to recruit more health visitors. That just seems so vital and may well answer some of the noble Baroness’s concerns.

I mentioned recently a visit to Walthamstow where a health visitor saw a mother with a young infant. She tried to persuade the mother to go to the local children’s centre but only had one bite at the cherry to do so. She had a statutory responsibility to see families something like five times before the age of five. She only had a short period—some 15 minutes or so—to spend with this mother. There was no father; he was absent. The mother’s family was in Africa. The only people she knew in the area were local church people who came and helped her. She was otherwise completely isolated. If we reinforce health visiting and strengthen family/nurse partnerships, people like that mother might be encouraged to use children’s centres and engage. We might reach out to more vulnerable families. I warmly welcome the Government’s commitment in that area.

I may be wrong about my concern with regard to private providers; I reiterate that there are many outstanding private providers in many areas. However, when we discussed the Childcare Act, some of the evidence appeared to indicate a higher staff turnover among some of the private providers. Can the Minister provide information about staff turnover in early-years nursery provision as that seems to me the crucial piece of data? If we can see how private providers compare with local authority providers and voluntary providers, we can get a sense of their performance. Although that information obviously needs to be put in context, I think we all agree that the most important thing for any infant is a stable relationship with their carer. A high turnover of staff in a setting certainly gives cause for concern. I have had the privilege of speaking with a manager of a Montessori centre on a number of occasions and have great admiration for that approach. I am grateful to the noble Lord for his support for the other comments that I have made today.

I understand the Government’s concern not to be overly prescriptive and to avoid rigidity as far as possible as regards setting minimum standards. However, the noble Lord spoke about the health service setting certain minimum standards for its practitioners. If we all agree that the early years are the most vital point in a child’s life and that this measure is a very important way of breaking the cycle of disadvantage, perhaps we need to think a bit more about whether, given the current enormous financial pressures on local authorities, we might do more to assist them to make the best decisions for children in these circumstances. I am sure that we will discuss this further.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I thank the Minister for a very detailed response to these amendments. I also thank other noble Lords for their contributions, particularly those of the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, on disengaged parents, the importance of qualifications, how that relates very clearly to quality, and how quality is the key factor that makes the biggest difference to children’s experience of a setting. That is all very positive and I am grateful to them for their comments.

I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord True, felt that there was a conflict between the various amendments in the group; perhaps I did not explain them well enough. I did not perceive that conflict, but perhaps when we return to the amendments on Report—I think that we will do so—I can iron that out for him.

I want to comment specifically only on the Minister’s response on Amendment 5, which would enshrine in legislation current provision for three and four year-olds. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Peston for his comments in that regard. Including this provision on the face of the Bill would consolidate the progress that has been made. I am not requesting that it should be included simply to nail it down; the measure would indicate powerfully to parents and to the private and public sector early-years providers that any future Government who rolled back the provision would be subject to the full scrutiny that is involved in changing primary legislation. As the Bill stands, the regulation that enables provision for two year-olds to be extended also allows the entitlement for three and four year-olds to be reduced if a Secretary of State chooses to do so. It is a lost opportunity not to make clear to parents and providers—

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

No. I made it very clear that I do not doubt the commitments that have been expressed both here and in the other place. I said in my opening remarks that while these Ministers and this Government can speak for themselves, clearly they cannot speak for any future Government. Therefore, to capture this entitlement for parents and children in legislation would protect it and send a signal to both parents and the private and public sector providers that it will take any future Government something other than the diktat of the Secretary of State through the negative procedure of secondary legislation to remove it, which would be allowed under the Bill as currently drafted.

The Minister said that he felt the current wording of our amendment might be too restrictive and would not allow the Government the enormous flexibility they would need if parents were unable to accept the offer of 15 hours over 38 weeks. However, it should not be beyond our wit to find a formulation which would allow us to put the offer in the Bill and make it subject to any subsequent provisions for increasing flexibility. I should like to talk to the Minister between now and Report to see if we can find a way of achieving the spirit of the amendment in a way that does not restrain any future thoughts on flexibility.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I omitted to ask the Minister whether he could remind the Committee of the present situation on the requirement for a graduate lead provision in early-years settings. I think the Government have introduced some exceptions; can he remind me of the situation or perhaps drop me a line?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I think the absolute requirement that there should be such a provision was removed at the end of last year. However, we expect that there would be at least one early-years professional or a qualified teacher to provide leadership in centres. There would be more local judgment on which people would be appropriate in the setting. However, we will speak further with the noble Earl.

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[Baroness Morris of Bolton]

My Lords, my name is on these amendments as I very much support their purpose and agree wholeheartedly with the views so well expressed by my noble friend Lord True. In doing so, I declare an interest as a governor of Bolton School, where we have a nursery which I helped to establish and which, luckily, is flourishing. That is a matter of luck because, as my noble friend said, it can vary from authority to authority.

In my Second Reading speech, I welcomed the extension of the free provision to disadvantaged two year-olds but sought reassurance from my noble friend the Minister on whether nursery providers had been consulted regarding their ability to deliver the Government’s ambitions. I asked this because under the previous Government—although I genuinely believe that this was never their intention—good, long established, private, voluntary and independent providers either went out of business or reluctantly shut their doors to free provision. They simply could not reconcile the service that they provided with the changing dynamics brought by free provision. That is a tragedy because parental choice should be central to nursery education. Without the diversity that a strong and resilient private and voluntary sector provides, there is no real choice. These amendments seek to redress the unforeseen consequences of free provision. I hope that they will find favour with my noble friend.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I support my noble friend Lord True in what he said about allowing providers flexibility in what they charge parents. I had a discussion with a manager of a children’s centre—in fact, she had responsibility for 10 children’s centres across London. She said that we need innovative ways of finding the money to keep these services going in the current recession. In particular, she highlighted that we should encourage parents who can pay to pay, so that parents who cannot can get a service. That seemed to be line with what the noble Lord, Lord True, said. It seems sensible. I will perhaps need to look more carefully at his proposal but hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to what he said.

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I will make a few brief remarks on these amendments. First, in terms of Amendment 8 and the principle of having a diverse sector, I have personally always strongly supported that—as did the previous Government. It is in the interests of parents and children for us to maintain that diversity and to try to raise the quality right across all parts of that sector. There is no difficulty there.

My problem with Amendment 6 and Amendment 9 is that they would basically allow individual nurseries to charge top-up fees to parents in one way or another. They would either say, “You can bring your children for the 15 hours but then you have to pay an extra X pounds per hour because that is our charge”, or they would apply a condition that the parent had to take more than 15 hours. There would be a very high charge for the hours over 15 so as to cross-subsidise. As the noble Lord, Lord True, alluded to, there are other kinds of conditions as well, such as parents having to pay for certain facilities or other items. This is just a way of getting extra funding in.

I appreciate some of the problems that nurseries have had. In discussing this, we have to recognise what the impact of allowing it would be. Instead of an entitlement with equal access to all provision for all parents whatever their circumstances, we would have a different two-tier system from that which the noble Lord, Lord True, alluded to. We would have a two-tier system in which parents who could pay the extra fees could go to the nurseries of their choice but other parents with less income would be restricted to going to those nurseries that were not charging a top-up—that did not have to. That is in fundamental contradiction to what this entitlement is trying to achieve.

Having said that, I also investigated this at some length. I have long relationships with some of the private providers and great respect for many of them for the work that they do. We commissioned a report to try and understand why some but not all private nurseries were having this kind of problem. That independent report identified two main factors. One was that not all local authorities were distributing the funding allocation quite fairly, and that some were supporting public sector provision, particularly nursery classes in schools—there is a higher cost there—more than the private sector. We introduced, and I think that the current Government are going to proceed with this, a proposal that each area has to agree a single formula for the allocation of funding so that there is parity across private, voluntary and public sector providers.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, like a number of noble Lords who have spoken, the Government are sensitive to concerns about the sustainability of private, voluntary and independent provision. I agree with my noble friend Lord True that we want the early-years sector to remain diverse and to continue to provide parents with a range of options for their children. We know that something like 37,000 different providers currently offer free entitlement, and it is good that we have that range and diversity. The PVI sector plays a significant part in that provision and we want to see that continue.

I understand the points that the noble Lord made; as always, he makes his case forcefully and clearly, but I find myself in the same position. The noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, set out her concerns about the amendment clearly, and I was interested to hear some of the history of the independent review to which she alluded. The current Government have gone ahead with the early-years single funding formula introduced in April this year. I hope that that will provide greater transparency in how funding for three and four year-olds’ early education is distributed. Greater transparency should help flush out some of these issues.

The noble Baroness recognised that, in the past, there was concern that private providers were not getting a fair crack of the whip compared with maintained sector providers. The single funding formula will help. It will mean that parents and providers should be able to hold local authorities more to account. That formula is based on a common set of principles to ensure that funding is distributed to providers based on clear and common criteria. To increase efficiency and fairness, that funding will be participation-led—it is based on children actually participating—rather than place-led, as it was in the past, whether or not the place was filled. That will also help.

My noble friend's amendments raise the question of whether providers should be able to charge top-up fees. The Government have considered the issue carefully, but we are clear, as were the previous Government, that provision guaranteed by the statutory entitlement must be free to parents. My honourable friend the Minister of State for Children and Families, Sarah Teather, who is responsible for this area, is clear that she does not see top-up fees as an answer to the concerns that some providers have expressed.

Local authorities have a statutory duty under Section 7 of the Childcare Act to secure a prescribed amount of early education free of charge for eligible three and four year-olds. Under Clause 1, we will extend that duty to include disadvantaged two year-olds. There is a danger that allowing providers to charge top-up fees could put the entitlement out of the range of the very people that we most want to help. It would mean that those children who have most to benefit from the early-years help—the most disadvantaged—might be unable to access it. We could not support that.

Amendment 8 would ensure that the guidance issued by the Secretary of State under Clause 1 addresses the issues of sustainability and viability. As I said, we have the early-years single funding formula. The Government's commitment to the free entitlement does not prevent providers charging fees for hours outside the 15 free early education hours per week. We take the view that additional hours and services outside those for which the provider receives funding from the local authority are a private matter between the provider and the parent, and it is perfectly reasonable for providers to charge for additional hours or optional extras, provided that access to a free place is not conditional on taking those options.

Funding for free entitlement places is one part of a broader package of support to which providers have access. Many receive training and other assistance to support improvements in quality and to secure sufficient childcare provision. We want to work with the sector on issues such as this. I recognise the points that my noble friend raised. As he knows, I always listen to what he says with particular care. We have invited sector representatives, including the Pre-school Learning Alliance, the National Day Nurseries Association, the Daycare Trust and the National Childminders Association, as well as local authorities, to discuss with the department some of the issues that he raised.

At bottom, as my noble friend suspected when he rose to move the amendment, we do not want to run the risk of placing barriers in the way of our most disadvantaged families. I therefore ask him to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I am sorry for tiring the Committee, but just to help me understand better how sufficient the funding is that the Government are providing to providers, could the Minister break it down a little further? I think I missed the figure per hour. How much would an early-years worker get funded to work in a setting? If we strip out the training, how much would we expect them to get paid per hour? How does that compare with someone working at a cash desk in Tesco or a teacher? I recognise that this may be down to the discretion of the setting. Maybe this is something that the Minister would be kind enough to write to me about. How much would one expect the person working on the ground to get out of the sum that is being paid to providers?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, the short answer is that it will vary considerably from area to area. If I am able to provide any better particulars, I will write to the noble Earl.

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[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support what has been proposed. I put my name to this amendment because I have spoken on a number of occasions with the manager of a Montessori nursery and been impressed with what I have heard from her about her work. Indeed, she is a very impressive individual, having worked in the private business sector before coming into nursery teaching. Recently she was telling me about her experience of continuing professional development, where she had a senior practitioner observe her in the course of a whole day’s teaching, taking careful notes of what she and the children were doing and of the interactions between the teacher and the children. She learnt from this. The senior practitioner said, “Very good, but you do tend to lift your finger a bit too much”. She said, “Yes, this is what my mother did to me. Aha; I am bringing it into the nursery classroom”. That is the sort of model that I think the Government are proposing more widely in schools generally in their White Paper: classroom-based learning. I would regret if anything were done to the detriment of such a good approach, so I hope that the Minister can be reassuring in his response.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I support the amendments. We are not talking here about some new provider on the block with bright ideas. Montessori is an established, tried and true, long-lasting provider of education. It is of a high quality. In days long ago when it was inspected regularly by HMI, inspectors always came back with very high-standard reports of what was going on. Montessori also has its own system for training its own teachers and staff, which again is of a very high quality and thorough, and produces people who are well versed in the Montessori way. There are many people of all ages, some probably now in their 80s and 90s, who have been through the Montessori experience and can testify to its importance in their own lives. I hope, as others have said, that the Minister will at least give a warm response to the amendments.

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[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, after listening to the emotions raised, it is quite clear that this is an explosive situation. As to the longer term, after looking at my diary I can see that we have a few more sessions in Committee and then a break. This will give us longer to work out the best solution to the problem for when we get to Report.

All kinds of issues have been raised: race, where there is an element of real concern, the use of phones and the danger to teachers. One view is that phones are good things and can be useful—and no doubt they can be—but you have to adopt a different approach to a situation where children, particularly girl children, have had these phones used to record certain incidents that might be used against them. As president of the NGA, I believe that there is a role for the governors and I intend to ask about the advice given to schools. I would have thought that somewhere between the head teacher, the chairman of governors and the governing body there would have to be a policy anyhow on what happens under these circumstances.

I hope that we can put this off a while. We need a real teach-in, if possible before the end of summer or on one of those splendid occasions when we are dragged back into the building. However, I am ambivalent. I can see some of the problems from the school viewpoint but it will remain a worrying situation until we can draw out something which is satisfactory to all sides.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I want to flag up for the Minister that this might be relevant to his interest in the training and development of teachers more generally and that he might seek confirmation from those of your Lordships who have been in practice in this area whether my concerns regarding the teacher-pupil relationship are right. I know from other settings working with children that it is vital to build a relationship of trust. All kinds of emotions can emerge from that. There can be love, as the noble Lord, Lord Elton, has often said, but there can also be feelings of hate.

I remember observing a teacher—a man in his late 40s, perhaps—working with a 16 year-old girl with Down’s syndrome. We were taking her out on a summer expedition to picnic in the park. She was a lovely girl but she was unmanageable; she would push the boundaries. She would walk away, and what could he do? What could any of us do? As we went back in the minibus I observed him—I may have been incorrect in my observation—start to tease her about her boyfriend who was sat next to her. We are all human and when we are put under pressure certain people get under our skin and certain things come up. The way in which we can avoid taking such things personally is by reflecting on what we are doing—just as that Montessori teacher was helped to observe that wagging her finger at pupils was not helpful and perhaps came from an experience in her past that she does not want to bring about again.

Rather long-windedly, I am suggesting to the Minister that his work in bringing in Charlie Taylor to advise about behaviour and in thinking about how we can better train and develop teachers might be useful in this area—not only to avoid having to bring about the searching of children but the danger that certain children might be targeted by teachers who find them annoying. This might be one way of dealing with that annoyance.

People have always emphasised to me that—I wanted to check this point with those who have teaching experience—little attention is given to the teacher-pupil relationship in teacher training and development and that there is a vacuum in that regard. In the initial teacher training there is very little about child development and how you interact with children. Continuing professional development is also lacking in that regard. Teachers report that it is wonderful to be given training in child development and managing difficult behaviour. Indeed, the training that foster carers say is most valuable to them is that concerned with managing difficult behaviour. I flag up the point to the Minister that the broader issue of the training and development of teachers is involved here. I know that he is doing some work in that area and he may want to say something about that in his response.

[Lord Morris of Handsworth]

My Lords, as the debate has revealed, this is a very sensitive issue which has to be dealt with with the greatest understanding in respect of the problems that can arise, including the possible disruption of a school. Before this issue arises again on Report, the Minister might wish to consider producing detailed guidance to assist teachers in this area as regards the dos and the don’ts, what is prohibited and, indeed, what is acceptable. One point that has not emerged in the debate is that of who searches who and whether a pupil should be searched by a teacher of the same sex as himself or herself. That issue needs to be addressed; if not, teachers will be left vulnerable and exposed and may be subjected to unfair criticism and accusations. I hope that the Minister will consider bringing forward guidance to support teachers in this respect.

Education: Vocational Subjects

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 12th May 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I welcome Professor Wolf’s review and the Government’s Statement, in particular what they have said about reviewing the league table system, making it more sensitive and, I hope, looking more closely at the distance travelled by all children in the education system. I would like ask two questions. The first relates to achieving literacy in children, which enables them to be successful in these courses, and the other relates to the quality of mentors in the workplace.

First, does the Minister recognise the important contribution of charities working with children in schools, and indeed within their families, to address their difficulties in attaining literacy? For instance, Voluntary Reading Help works in more than 1,000 primary schools and trains adult volunteers in the community to work on a one-to-one basis, with a commitment over a year to work with individual children twice a week. Also, Learning School Help works with children, in their families and in their schools, to help them achieve literacy. As to the workplace, can the Minister give more detail about how mentors are developed, how good-quality mentoring is recognised and celebrated, and whether there are any schemes to certify good-quality mentoring in the workplace for apprentices?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I very much agree with the noble Earl about the importance of charities. One announcement made today in the broader context of tackling the NEET problem—no one has found a better way of saying it than NEET, because otherwise it takes too long—is a new £10 million-a-year fund to be set up, which I hope will be taken up by charities and the voluntary sector, to come up with solutions to help those children, such as I was lucky enough to see recently, to re-engage, undertaken by Fairbridge, which does a fantastic job in helping to re-engage those children. I very much agree with the noble Earl about the role of charities.

If I have more detail on the noble Earl’s second point about mentoring, I will come back to him. I will follow that up; but he and I may also have a chance to discuss that further outside the House.

National Music Plan

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Yes and yes, my Lords. I will certainly do that. I agree entirely agree with the point made by the noble Baroness about the important role that the conservatoires play. I hope that we will be able to build on Teach First, which is another excellent scheme introduced by the previous Government, and to look in particular at whether we can encourage more graduates of that scheme who have been through the conservatoire system to learn to teach and to spread what they have learnt. I will certainly relay the noble Baroness’s second point to BIS.

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, what progress has been made in moving teaching towards being a masters degree profession and will such a degree provide an opportunity to develop some of the specialisms identified in the Henley review as being needed? Perhaps the Minister might visit Burdett-Coutts primary school, around the corner from here, which does a marvellous job in encouraging a great range of pupils to use musical instruments.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

The noble Earl is very kind in trying to induce me to go around the corner with him; I would be keen. I was lucky enough last year to go to the Schools Prom at the Royal Albert Hall. If any Members of this House have been there in their roles, they will know what a fantastic, wonderful evening it is. It was one of the most life-enhancing evenings that I have had for a very long time—which may say something about my life as well. It made one realise how much is going on in schools, what music teachers and music services are delivering, and how music can bring so much to children in a range of ways. As the noble Earl knows, there are a number of ways in which we need to look at the quality and range of teacher training, developing the idea of school-to-school support and learning the best that schools have already developed. That should have an important part to play in the development of specialist music teachers as well.

Children: Early Intervention

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who gave us such well informed and wise words about children being allowed to enjoy their childhoods and not being encouraged by their parents to start reading books on planets at the age of two—as a primary school head teacher told me only yesterday evening.

In our debate we have paid much attention to raising the status of the workforce, and to recruiting and retaining the best people to work with children. There has also been some mention of the evidence base for work in this area. I will make a brief comment on getting the balance right between those two things. Of course it is right to seek the best evidence for what we do: but it is also right to give professionals the autonomy to do what they think is best. I took from the very eloquent maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, his ability as a head teacher, with money, to make the right choices for his school. Having spoken with many primary school head teachers who have been in place for some time, it did not surprise me that he got to know his local community, he got to know what was right for that area, and he went on to become an outstanding leader of the city—as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp—because he understood so well the people in it.

The danger with overreliance and insistence on an evidence base—particularly the sort of evidence base that Dame Clare Tickell talked about, namely a Rolls-Royce, randomised control trial—is that those in government and local government become back-seat drivers. It reminds me of the experience of being driven by my girlfriend with her parents in the back, and the terrible discomfort of listening to them telling her how she should be driving. During my time in this House there has always been a danger of insisting too harshly on an evidence base and inhibiting those who are very well placed at the front line to make the right choices and take the right actions.

I will also take this opportunity to join others in thanking the Minister and his colleagues for their strong focus on the workforce, particularly teachers, in the White Paper on excellence in teaching and delivering the outcomes we want for children. That is a fantastic emphasis to have. I admire the way that the previous Government did the same thing. This is now beginning to spread to social work; we are insisting and recognising that high-quality expertise, keeping people in the service near the front line and allowing them to become experienced and to make the right judgments for children will give us the best results, as it does in Finland, where they recruit the best teachers.

Most of the models of evidence-based policy that the noble Lord referred to came from the United States. One came from the United Kingdom. How well does the United States do in terms of child welfare? Where is it placed in the developed countries' league table, and where are we placed? Do the continentals not do far better? I remember a comment made by a pedagogue from Germany who came to this country some years ago. He said how wonderful it was to come to a country where there was such clear evidence of the outcomes of looked-after children. I almost wept when I listened to him, because in his country and in Denmark they had the right professional framework for these children, with a far better balance than we had.

I will talk briefly about the Cassel Hospital, where the family service is closing. The hospital was established in 1963. It serves families with complex needs where parents are at serious risk of harming their children. It struggled for its existence for a long time. It brings together outstanding professionals from all disciplines to work in a residential setting. It has 25 bed units. A forensic psychiatrist who gives evidence to courts said to me that she had almost decided that a child had to be taken away from their parents but, knowing that the Cassel service was available, she agreed to say to the court, “Perhaps this can work”. She followed the child and their family for two years at the Cassel Hospital. The family were reunited and succeeded. The evidence from the outcomes of this service shows that if the families pass the assessment period and are taken in for therapy, most children will be able to stay with their families. Those who are removed and placed in foster care or adopted have stable placements, and there are very good outcomes. This is also an outstanding place for training new practitioners. The daughter of my noble friend Lady Hollins is a child psychotherapist who trained at this flagship NHS hospital, working with those families.

Therefore, my question to the Minister is: what services will now be available to families such as these? Local services have worked with these families for two years but their intervention has not been successful. What other options are available? I understand that multi-systemic therapy approaches are being employed and I should like to know more. I would appreciate it if the Minister could ask his colleague at the Department of Health to write to me with details. I should also like consideration to be given to making use of the huge experience that is to be found at the Cassel Hospital.