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

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Tuesday 17th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I am surprised that this measure has come back as a statutory instrument, given our debate during the passage of the Bill. It is an ill advised piece of legislation. Like my noble friend who moved the Motion, I want to look at it on the strategic level and on points of detail.

The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, made a significant contribution because there has been agreement over the 30 years since her colleagues’ 1988 education Act that inspection constitutes an essential part of the infrastructure of education policy and it was the first time that I had heard any senior politician from any of the parties be so critical of inspection per se as part of the framework. If I follow the logic of what the noble Baroness said, I am left wondering why we are letting Ofsted into any school in the country. If Ofsted is so weak and if we should now start to question its role in the education service, it cannot be just for outstanding schools; it must be in respect of the schools for which we worry far more, which are the satisfactory and less-than-satisfactory schools in our education system. There was no logic in that.

I, for one, still believe that inspection has been an essential part of basic education policy for the past 30 years. Successive Governments have abided by this. The narrative goes something like: “We want to give more freedom to schools, to encourage them to innovate and take on local character, to trust them more and more, and we are more confident in doing that if there is an accountability mechanism at its core. The better the inspection framework and the better our testing and the publication of that data, the more successive Governments have felt that they could free up so much more of the education system”. I still abide by that. It has been a shared concern across the parties and I am really worried if Members on the Government Back Benches—and perhaps the Front Bench, from whom we will hear—begin to challenge that shared understanding that we have had for a number of years.

The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, talked about a fall in standards in our schools over the past few years. I fundamentally disagree with her. That is not what I have seen, and I do not believe it describes what is going on in our schools. However, I do remember—because I taught in it—the school system before we had any inspection at all. I would not want to go back to that. The standard of education, the quality of teaching and the number of children being let down was far greater before we had this accountability framework, including inspection, than it ever has been since. That is my first point. Strategically, the Government are pushing freedom for individual schools. Logically, they have every reason to care more about the inspection framework and the accountability framework, rather than less. They are throwing it away.

My second strategic point, or point of policy and substance, is that if you read the Explanatory Memorandum—which I think was disingenuous in many ways—it says that allowing outstanding schools not to be inspected by Ofsted is a reward for good performance. We have spent years trying to persuade schools that being inspected by Ofsted is not a punishment. It is something that is good for schools and good for teaching, which they should accept. If being exempt from inspection is a reward for good performance, what does it say about those schools that we are asking Ofsted to go into more frequently? It must be that it is a punishment for underperformance.

If struggling schools see Ofsted inspections as a punishment, rather than as something that can be an essential step in improving their performance, that absolutely takes away all the progress that has been made over the past 20 years in trying to get a new generation of teachers to view Ofsted in a completely different light.

The second point the Explanatory Memorandum makes is about freeing up staff time. Ofsted inspection should not be taking up lots of classroom time. That is why we have moved to shorter notice for inspection and to inspectors being able to come in with two or three days’ notice. It is an admission by government that having Ofsted in your school wastes the time of teachers. Frankly, if we want to free up time, it ought to be for teachers who are teaching in schools that still have a long way to go, rather than in those that are outstanding.

The last point, of course, is saving money. If this is a money-saving measure, say so. Let it be. Let us talk about that, but let us not pretend that it is a decent educational measure.

In terms of local accountability, one of the things about Ofsted is that it gives a national framework for inspection, and it does not actually rely on local accountability. I want a system where the schools in the poorest areas are compared with the schools in the richest areas; the south with the north; the east with the west; the poor with the rich; the ethnic minorities with the affluent white. Unless we have a national inspection framework, we will never get that.

On details of policy, most of these points have been made, but I will make one more. The panoply of bureaucracy that is being built up as part of the risk assessment will take away any extra time or money that might have come Ofsted’s way. As the years go by, there will hopefully be more schools that receive outstanding Ofsted reports, go into that category and will have to be risk-assessed every year. We are assured that there is no trigger or tick box, so careful judgments about all these schools will have to be taken into account.

I will finish with two or three questions, some of which build on those which have already been asked. First, I want to pursue one of the questions outlined by my noble friend Lord Hunt. He asked whether schools will be reinspected. If in future Ofsted criteria change, will schools be inspected again or will they be allowed to be free for life from inspection against a set of criteria that is no longer being used?

Secondly, why are special schools not in this group? If we are going to exempt outstanding schools, then why are we not going to exempt special schools?

Thirdly, the Explanatory Memorandum talks about, I think, 60% of people who were in favour of a risk-based approach to inspection. I am in favour of a risk-based approach to inspection, but I am not in favour of this. Will the Minister let us know what the consultation report said about the number of people who were in favour of this particular recommendation?

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness for raising this very important subject. I share many of her concerns, particularly the concerns raised by several noble Lords about the rapid changes in school quality and how we can be sure we get on top of that in good time and do not allow some of these children’s education, and their time in school, to be wasted.

In one particular aspect of our education, which is faith schools—we have heard about creationism—there has been a lot of concern in debates on education Bills in this House about how they work in practice. Many faith schools deliver great education to children, but they are a special complexity for this country, and there is therefore concern about how this regulation may be implemented in that regard.

I have sympathy with the Government’s position. I listened with great interest to what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry of Southwark, said. I was reminded of the experience in Finland, where there is no school inspection system. Finland's Minister of Education says:

“Teachers in Finland can choose their own teaching methods and materials. They are experts of their own work, and they test their own pupils. I think this is also one of the reasons why teaching is such an attractive profession in Finland because teachers are working like academic experts with their own pupils in schools”.

Education Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. We have seen a great change in the training of teachers in recent years. In the past, teachers typically were trained for three years to their bachelor educational degree, which was a good long grounding. We have seen that period reduced to one year, and more and more teachers are being trained on the job. I welcome the move to more classroom-based learning for teachers but we have to be sure that it is right. There is a risk to that strategy and I look for reassurance from the Minister that teachers will be getting an understanding of SEN in that training. Perhaps I may make a further comment—we should not forget that more and more classroom assistants are those who work one-to-one with children with SEN. They too need the high-quality training.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief comment and ask a question. I have some sympathy with the amendment. When I first saw it I thought that it was perhaps overprescriptive, but having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Low, I have sympathy with it. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill we have understandably heard a lot from the Government about not putting heavy regulatory burdens on schools. Given that that is the direction in which we are going, it is obvious that at some point in the system there should be a fair amount of regulation—otherwise the system collapses and no-one would know what is going on. My understanding from the teaching schools—of which I am a great supporter and I hope that they do very well—is that this is one of those areas where the Government have accepted that there will have to be a lot of monitoring and a fair amount of regulation. You can see that by looking at the criteria for a teaching school. For instance, a head has to have been in post for three years—a matter with which I have always quibbled in my mind. However, I am not going to quibble with it because I accept that this is one of those bits of the education system that the Government really will have to keep their eyes on.

I can therefore see the argument, given that one of the great weaknesses in our education system is the quality of training for SEN that teachers get, that there is never enough time in initial teacher training to do that adequately. It is not properly covered in the induction year—it did not happen when I was in power and there has not been much improvement since. There is a genuine problem and I am persuaded by what the noble Lord says—these are the areas where these institutions need to be properly regulated. Losing this opportunity, which we should seize to raise the standards of teaching those with special needs, would be again to commit the mistake that we have all committed through the years, which is to pass legislation and then in future years see how we can tag SEN on to it. That has been a huge fault of government for decades. We put something in place and a few months later think, “Ah, how can we make this relate to SEN?”.

My question is this—how many schools designated teaching schools have not been awarded an “outstanding” category by Ofsted? What is that overlap, and how many schools not in that category have applied to become teaching schools? Perhaps the Minister can provide a little analysis of the comparison between schools which have been awarded the “outstanding” category as a result of inspections and those that are “outstanding” in SEN.

Education Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[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.

Education Bill

Debate between Earl of Listowel and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[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?