Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 12th February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to ensure that all schools have the capacity to identify and implement a plan of support for the most commonly occurring special educational needs, including Dyslexia, ADHD, Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, and Autism.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my declared interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, ensuring everyone, regardless of need, gets the best education possible is vital. Our SEND and AP improvement plan will ensure all children get the support they need. So far, we have opened 15 special free schools since September; announced the Partnerships for Inclusion of Neurodiversity in Schools programme; trained 100,000 professionals in autism awareness; confirmed funding for 400 more education psychologists; and updated the initial teacher training and early career framework, including additional content on SEND.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minister for her Answer. I have just managed to read through the updates and changes for training teachers. If we are now going to use online testing as a major identification tool—as suggested—and use it in the classroom, how will we disseminate that knowledge without having more specialists directly available to the school, so that can have accurate diagnosis when those assistive technology methods are used?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Lord will be aware that our whole approach is about meeting the needs of the child and not requiring a diagnosis to get support. That is incredibly important for our focus on intervention and support at the earliest possible stage. All that comes before the online testing, and it is critical that we get it right.

Schools: RAAC

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government how they plan to mitigate the safety risks of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in schools and to ensure the swift deployment of financial assistance for necessary maintenance and construction upgrades.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, as the Chamber empties, the first thing I should say on this debate is to remind everybody listening of what we are talking about: reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete. It is a type of concrete of which I have heard some very picturesque descriptions—“a cement Aero bar” was my favourite. I am not quite sure what that confectionery has done to deserve comparison to this substance, but we are talking about a type of concrete that does not have aggregates in it, and thus is light, with its strength given by putting steel strips in it. It is used in things such as roofs and walls. In Britain, it is used very heavily in roofs. It is fine if it is kept dry and well-maintained. Unfortunately, it has been used in school roofs. Whatever you say about schools’ maintenance budgets, we can all agree that they have not been that great or consistent, and anybody who has ever owned a house knows that you cannot guarantee not to have leaks. We have in schools a substance which is porous, above your head and can collapse. This is not a good starting point.

The timeline for when trouble was first spotted is incredible. This issue was first raised in 1996. In 1999, the Standing Committee on Structural Safety maintained that we should be identifying it. We have had this problem a long time and we have not dealt with it. We waited until the situation got critical, when things started falling down, and then had to run around trying to do something about it. This is where we have got to. What has been the result? We have schools which are unsafe—when your classroom ceiling comes in, you cannot teach in it.

Here we come to the real nub of the matter: children’s education is affected. We find classrooms that are not fit for purpose and potentially dangerous, and we have to take remedial action. We can bandy around figures about just how many, but a few hundred schools are affected and tens of schools have actually been collapsing. In certain key cluster areas, the construction pattern of previous years has led to schools that do not work and pupils who are not being educated. Largely, they are the same pupils who have already had their school life disrupted by the Covid lockdown. This Chamber has talked often enough about not getting enough children into school. We have a historically high absentee rate. Across schools we have children who are not functioning in their classrooms, and we have this thrown in.

Then we see that the maintenance of schools has usually been something that people have wanted to put off for another day. We have not had the drive to make sure schools are maintained. We have not spotted the problem and now we have this nice little crisis coming down and pushing in. The Government’s response has been, “Oh, terrible! Let’s stop going in and let’s take money from somewhere else, roughly in the budget, and push it in here as a priority”. This effectively means that you are robbing Peter to pay Paul—moving money around within the school budget. So we are going to have other problems in other areas, and there are already other problems in the school infrastructure package—we know that.

One of the things that brought this issue to my attention was the “Panorama” programme showing temporary classrooms that were older than the teachers in them. I ask the Government this: if you are bringing in temporary structures, what is their life expectancy and where will that be reported? Before this debate, the Local Government Association came to me and said, in effect, “By the way, it has always been clear as mud as to where we have these problems”. Can we have some guarantee that we will take the information about where the problems have been identified and pass it on to those who will have to make the budgetary decisions? That is one of the things that we should do on the way through.

The second thing is that we simply must make sure that the schools that have this issue get the extra funding they need to deal with the situation now. If we strip the budget or move things around, we will create more problems across the piece. What is the Government’s attitude to making sure that funding goes directly to this problem now, and quickly? We have had emergency funding before, and okay, the figures will sound big. The Government will then tell us that we are spending more money than we have ever spent before. Last night, we had a debate about financial education. One of the things we did not mention was inflation. Inflation means that you will always spend more money on a project today than you did yesterday. Some of the figures I have received estimate that, in real terms, our budget has been consistently lower than at any time since around 2003.

What are we going to do to make sure that the immediate need is met? We have a situation where children who should be in a classroom and should be being taught are not. We then have extra costs being lumbered on people, such as for temporary accommodation and moving children around. They are not concentrating; it is going to be more difficult. Some will come through and some wonderful teachers will pick up the slack, but any system that says you have to be a little lucky and a bit special has a degree of failure in it; if you have to be very lucky and very special, it is a total failure.

Can the Minister tell us how the Government mean to mitigate this quickly and keep track of what they have done, so that we can come back in and make sure that temporary solutions are not becoming permanent ones? That is an important facet here. The temporary classroom that sits in the corner of a school estate should be gone in five or 10 years. It should not be waiting for its third refit.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

Not 10 years.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My noble friend’s comment suggests that I am being hopelessly optimistic in my assessment there; I look forward to hearing from him later.

Can we have some guidance from the Government showing that they will make sure that the Treasury helps the department, because that is where the money comes from? The current Prime Minister has been Chancellor. If he did not give money in the past, it is time to give it now—or to encourage his friend in Downing Street to ensure that there is enough money to deal with this issue. Its oncosts are incredibly high, not just for the establishment but for pupils and teachers in particular. This is where we should concentrate. I hope that, when the Minister replies to this short debate, we will get an idea of how that will be achieved. If we just move money within the estate—an estate that needs more repairs—we will not achieve it. We might not even deal with the RAAC problem—it will have gone—but there will be other problems. It is important that we make sure that the school estate is in better condition and that those working in it can function properly. This is the least we owe our pupils.

I hope that the Government will have a positive response for me, and will tell me that they are going to punch through and make sure that the Treasury coughs up. I do not expect that but I hope for it. I beg to move.

Russell Group Universities: Foreign Student Admissions

Lord Addington Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The universities are obliged to provide information about contact hours to students before they go on a course, and there are websites that are UK-wide, such as Discover Uni, where potential students can compare, for example, contact hours and other metrics across courses. The OfS obviously regulates the quality of courses and, although it does not look specifically at contact hours, it does look at continuation rates from one year to the next, completion rates and progression to graduate jobs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Government have got themselves into a situation where universities are just very short of cash. When are we going to put enough money into the system so they are only taking foreign students because they are of the right quality, and not because it keeps the universities afloat?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I remind the House of the figures on university income. Over the last five years, it has grown by 24%, from £32.9 billion to £40.8 billion, and over that time UK fees have grown by 19%. The latest data on the staff headcount in universities, which was published very recently, showed another increase year on year, which does not look to me like a sector that is in trouble across the board.

Schools: Financial Education

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 31st January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Sater, on doing most of the heavy lifting, which was just as well considering the sprint relay event that followed it.

The noble Lord, Lord Polak, caught my thoughts most clearly when he said this must be embedded throughout the education system. I was thinking of Jane Austen, who writes about little other than money; if you look at English, and then look at Dickens, they all go there. History records it as well—the fact you have these institutions that come down to us—but it depends on the bit you are doing; the Tudors may not be quite as relevant as the first Labour Government after the war, but it is all there. You need to reinforce the idea—the noble Lord, Lord Davies, caught that as well, that it is an idea you are going for—and the maths behind it, such as compound interest and interest rates, as the noble Earl, Lord Effingham, said, and apply it and put it across.

My question to the Minister is: when does she think this reinforcing of ideas across the curriculum stands a chance of being integrated into a programme of study that most people will come across? We want to make it so that you cannot avoid this subject, and not just fall asleep and write it off because you do not like it—if anybody here says they did not do that during a lesson at school, they are lying to themselves. There are people who will simply not get it, but if the idea is bounced around, some may stand a chance of it being ingrained. This is a big subject with lots of ramifications and tentacles. If you treat it as a one-off lesson substitution, you will annoy everybody who likes the subject that you are cutting, and you will guarantee that some just will not get it at all.

Home and Online Schooling

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend will be aware that government legislation was not in the King’s Speech, but the Government remain committed to introducing statutory local authority registers for children not in school as well as a duty for local authorities to provide support to home-educating families.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister mentioned that we are dealing with special educational needs here. When will we have a structure where every school has at least some expertise in how to teach for the most commonly occurring special educational needs without going to an education and health plan? When is that going to come in?

Children’s Care Homes: Reform

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely accept that far too many children who are in children’s homes—around two-thirds last year—were placed outside their local authority area. Obviously, I enormously respect the noble Lord’s expertise in this area. I hope he would agree with me that we have done a lot of reviewing. We are doing a lot of consulting, and we are very focused on growing the response from foster carers and increasing that part of the market, particularly in relation to kinship care, which I think the House believes may be the best solution for many of these children.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, in understanding that certain of these firms that are running children’s homes are making an excessive profit, would it not be a good idea if we addressed one of the accepted problems with the childcare system: the transition to adult life? If services were required to give active support to these individuals, we might have fewer problems carrying on, and we would make sure that this transition to being an independent person is easier. There is the money there because there is an excessive profit. Surely it should be used for this.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

To be fair, we need to be careful not to generalise too much. We have had some egregious examples, of which the most notable recently was the Hesley Group, with terrible abuses happening in children’s homes. We also have some very high-quality providers which are focused on many things, including the transition to which the noble Lord refers.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Addington Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Addington]

To ask His Majesty’s Government when they expect every school to have the capacity to internally identify commonly occurring special educational needs.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question standing in my name on the Order Paper and remind the House of my declared interests.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, we expect all schools to be able to identify commonly occurring special educational needs. In the improvement plan we included proposals to build workforce capacity and equip practitioners to identify needs and make best use of provision. Our increase in the high needs budget, worth £10.54 billion by 2024-25, will help children and young people with SEND in both special and mainstream schools to receive the right support in the right place at the right time.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

I thank the Minster for that reply. How does she square that with the fact that, according to an LSE survey, in lower socioeconomic groups more people are identified as having problems, but far fewer are identified correctly with those needs than are identified in more affluent areas? If you have other conditions such as dyslexia, it is not about doing more work, but working smarter. The way your brain is organised is different; I know this only too well from personal experience. You need different learning patterns and different strategies. When are we going to get to a situation where it is not the tiger parent who gets the diagnosis, but the school?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I acknowledge the noble Lord’s point about the variability in identification of certain commonly occurring special educational needs. There is a variability as the noble Lord explained, but also regionally. That is why we are trying in our special educational needs, disabilities and AP improvement plan to make sure that at every level—from initial teacher training to the qualifications of SENCOs, to the availability of specialist support from educational psychologists—schools get the support they need and such children are identified early.

Schools: Catering Facilities and RAAC

Lord Addington Excerpts

Monday 23rd October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot give the noble Lord an exact timeline because, as the House will have seen from the data we published on 19 October, we are identifying a number of additional schools with RAAC. Obviously, the clock starts for each one to address all its problems. But despite the increase in the number of schools identified as having RAAC, we have gone from about 14% of children receiving hybrid education—and a further 16% having to learn remotely or experiencing a delay to the start of term—to now only 6%. It is not a question of “only” for those children—for them, it is a huge deal—but no children are in remote education at the moment.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, things such as good catering and sports facilities are reckoned to help academic attainment, so will the fact that those facilities in these schools have been badly damaged be reflected in their status in league tables, for example?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Schools face different challenges every year, and I am not aware that there are plans to recalibrate the league tables as a result of this—I would be very surprised if that happened. But I reassure the noble Lord that, all around the country, not only the schools themselves but their neighbouring schools are doing everything to offer to share their facilities, and we are enormously grateful for that.

Core School Budget Allocations

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The noble Baroness needs to forgive me, but I am not familiar with the instances to which she refers. I am not aware of anywhere that there has been an error made by officials and the per- pupil figure was honoured, which would require finding, as I understand it, an additional £370 million. I do not think that is likely. I do not have an exact timeline for the investigation but, clearly, we want to get clarity on this as quickly as possible. We are absolutely committed to publishing the lessons learned from that.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, can the Minister give us some idea of where the lack of spending, shall we say, is affecting the structure of a school? I remind the House once again of my interests in special educational needs. Is it in the capacity to identify those with hidden disabilities? Some 80% of the population who are dyslexic are not identified at school, or throughout their lives. Are we going to find out that there is less capacity there? Will there be less capacity in things such as sport, or art and drama, because we are not undertaking the training? Where will there be some reduction in capacity in schools, because there clearly is going to be some?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think the noble Lord will accept that schools have significant autonomy over their budgets, and therefore it would not be appropriate for me to speculate on where they will make the savings to meet the shortfall.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I can only repeat what I said to the noble Lord, Lord Addington. Each school, as the noble Baroness well knows, has a deep understanding of the needs of their school community and is best placed to make the decision on where to prioritise spending, including the adjustments that, sadly, have to be made.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

Given that we still have time, following that answer, could the Minister give me an idea of what will not be cut? When will the planning be honoured? If we know that, we will have an idea of what is vulnerable.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

First, I do not accept that we are not honouring our commitment; it was £59.6 billion, and we are honouring that. It is important to have that on the record. The noble Lord will be relieved to know that, as I mentioned in the initial Answer, the high-needs budget for children with special educational needs and disabilities is not affected by this.

Education: Advanced British Standard

Lord Addington Excerpts

Tuesday 17th October 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am slightly surprised by the noble Baroness’s last remark. This programme clearly cannot work without the buy-in, understanding and support of school leaderships, so it would be a short-sighted Government who did not pay attention to their reflections on this. I am also slightly surprised by the noble Baroness’s hesitancy, because this approach was in the Labour manifesto of 2010 and recommended by the Times Education Commission.

[Lord Addington (LD)]

My Lords, I remind the House of my declared interests. Those with special educational needs, particularly dyslexia and dyscalculia, will clearly be put under a lot more pressure by this approach. When will the Government publish a plan to make sure that these people are not excluded from reaching an A-level standard or put under extra pressure? When can we relate it to the rest of the curriculum, or will we change the law so that you are allowed to exclude people and discriminate against them?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Clearly, we will not do the latter. It is incredibly important that we design this in such a way that we have the right offer for children with special educational needs and disabilities, those who have been in local authority care and those who have come from particularly disadvantaged homes. That is a clear commitment from the Government.