Curriculum and Assessment Review
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(2 days, 6 hours ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
My Lords, I start by acknowledging the work of Professor Becky Francis and her expert advisory team on this very important and detailed review. They were set clear criteria, which the team has diligently sought to incorporate. The level of detail in the review means that, given the time available, I will not be able to comment on many of the individual recommendations, but perhaps other noble Lords will raise them.
We were pleased to see that the review builds on the reforms brought in by my noble friend Lord Gove and the right honourable Sir Nick Gibb, the former Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton, and keeps key elements of curriculum and assessment reforms, including a phonics test, a focus on a knowledge-rich curriculum and subject-specific curricula, as well as formal, exam-based assessment.
One advantage of the slight delay between the Government publishing the review and then announcing their response is that, over the past few days, there has been a veritable litany of blogs and commentaries from real experts in this area. A few things from those have started to emerge, which I hope that the Minister will be able to comment on.
First, there seems to be a divide between the advocates of specific subjects, whether citizenship, digital literacy, media literacy, climate change, financial education or the performing arts. The enthusiasts for all those subjects are broadly happy, because their subject is now in, but they are beginning to worry about implementation. Indeed, I heard one advocate of financial education pointing out that although this already exists in the secondary curriculum, many secondary school pupils are not even aware that they have had a financial education lesson. As ever, implementation will be key.
Conversely, those who I would describe as the real curriculum experts are bringing a much more worried tone, as are those who lead some of our most successful schools and trusts. They are worried both by the extension of the curriculum and what that means for powerful knowledge and depth of understanding, and by the way it is being measured. So my questions and concerns reflect some of those of our greatest experts and practitioners and focus particularly on where the Government have diverged from the review’s recommendations.
As Professor Dylan Wiliam said, assessment operationalises the curriculum. It is where the rubber hits the road and, by extension, measurement of a school’s progress also shapes what is taught. In that context, we are concerned about the loss of the EBacc, which had led to a 10-percentage point increase in the uptake of history and geography GCSEs between 2010 and 2024, and also stemmed the decline in modern foreign language GCSEs. We have seen the percentage of disadvantaged pupils who do the EBacc rise from 9% in 2011 to 29% in 2024, and that is what opens doors and drives social mobility. What modelling have the Government done of the likely decline in these subjects in the absence of the EBacc, especially in relation to modern foreign languages?
Even more troubling, perhaps, are the changes to Progress 8, where the review was very clear that with some cosmetic changes to titles, Progress 8 should stay unchanged in substance. There is, I would say, a near-universal view from experts that the changes will lead to a lowering of standards for all children but, most importantly, for the underprivileged. I particularly acknowledge very thoughtful blogs and Twitter threads from Matt Burnage of Ark Soane and Stuart Lock of the Advantage Schools trust. Having invested in the evidence-led approach of the Curriculum and Assessment Review, what was the evidence on which the Government based their decision to deviate from the review’s recommendation in relation to Progress 8? What would the Minister say to school leaders who are already worrying that this will see an increase in breadth at the expense of depth? What would she say, more importantly, to those leaders who say, rightly, that schools do not operate in isolation, so there will be a pressure to choose easier options for pupils, especially disadvantaged pupils—the exact pupils the Government want to help?
The push for rigour, for the rights of all pupils to access the best of what has been written, thought and said, will erode. Key, as ever, will be implementation. To take just one example of curriculum change—
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
Just how long will this take? Will the Back-Benchers ever get in?
Baroness Barran (Con)
They will get 20 minutes.
To take one example of curriculum change and how to spot misinformation, as Daisy Christodoulou wrote in her recent blog on the Pacific Northwest tree octopus, there is a risk that we end up with simple checklists that aim to identify misinformation but which, in practice, work only if the pupil has enough knowledge to assess it. Will the Government take the advice of experts in this area and pilot the changes to this element of the curriculum that they propose?
Will the Minister clarify the timing of the introduction of the new curriculum? As noble Lords may have worked out, it will be 2042 before there are 18 year-olds whose whole schooling has been shaped by this review. The elements that risk eroding quality will kick in very quickly; those that might improve it are far, far away. I hope the Minister can also reassure us that, as Professor Becky Francis herself said, the things that will influence outcomes for disadvantaged pupils in the short term—notably, attendance and behaviour—are also outside the curriculum.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I congratulate the Minister and the Government on accepting the major recommendation of the Becky Francis report, which was to remove the EBacc curriculum that was imposed on all schools by Michael Gove—now the noble Lord, Lord Gove—in 2010. The EBacc consists of eight academic subjects. Word for word, the same subjects were taught in our schools from 1904, and so for 14 years we have had an Edwardian curriculum. It is not surprising that disadvantaged children were not helped. When the Conservatives came into office, there were just over 300,000 disadvantaged students; when they left office 14 years later, there were more than 300,000 disadvantaged students, and that is a disgrace. The other effect of the EBacc is that, when the Conservatives were in office, youth unemployment rose to 13.6%. That is almost the highest rate in Europe and double what it is in Germany. One of the tasks of this Government must be to reduce that level of youth unemployment.
I will say one thing. I hope that the Minister will refute the comments made last week by the noble Lord, Lord Gove, who said, in effect, that by abolishing the EBacc, social expansion and social development would somehow be destroyed in schools. The reality is the exact reverse: when comprehensives will be allowed to take more cultural subjects and more subjects on climate change, data skills and AI, they will find that social responsibility expands dramatically. That is the lesson of the university technical colleges that I have been promoting for the past 14 years. We have an unemployment rate of 5%, but young people leaving school have an unemployment rate of 13.6%—that is totally and utterly unacceptable.
I will say one other thing; I must try to be briefer than some of the other speakers. I will discuss only one element—another interesting thought to give the House. In the Becky Francis report, she said that she wanted to stand for “evolution not revolution”. I am afraid that the reality is completely the reverse. The way that the Government are making changes, first in skills—the noble Baroness is the Skills Minister—V-levels and all of that, and now the Becky Francis report, and now the Bill going through—
Lord Leong (Lab)
May the noble Lord wind up, because we have other speakers coming up as well?
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
Some of the long speeches we hear are not from the Back Benches but from the Front Benches, if I may say so. The only comment I will make is that the Government have in fact embarked on revolution, not evolution.
Jobs Market
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(4 weeks, 2 days ago)
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Baroness Sherlock (Lab)
We have to have a level playing field in employment rights. We are investing in supporting young people with a youth guarantee. For young people who are intensively looking for work, there should be no fourth alternative to education, training or a job. To put our money where our mouth is, we have announced that we will give young people who have spent 18 months looking for a job on universal credit a guaranteed job. Young people should be out there either earning or learning; we will make sure they can.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
Does the Minister appreciate that her Chief Whip opened by asking for shorter answers?
Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(2 months ago)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Lab)
My Lords, I will speak in favour of Amendment 435, to which I have added my name. I am also happy to signify support for Amendment 436ZZB. I am less enthusiastic about Amendment 436ZZA, because it is prolix and bureaucratic —but, if the opportunity came, I would not vote against it.
What is noticeable and very welcome is the unanimity of view across the Committee on this issue, which is one of accountability. As my noble friend Lady Morris said, academies are a very important part of the school system. I have no connection with academies, unlike other noble Members who have spoken, other than as the parent of a child currently in year 10 of a school in a multi-academy trust in London. However, it is important that we have insight into what is happening within trusts to a much greater extent than we have at the moment, because there is a fundamental gap in the accountability system for school education. If schools and children’s services are inspected, why not multi-academy trusts? For that reason, we need transparency, consistency and fairness.
Ofsted needs to have the power to inspect trusts’ governance, financial stewardship, curriculum content and teacher development, and how the trust-level ethos affects children across their academies. Some tales of the way in which certain trusts operate do not look good, given some of the pressures under which children are placed. I believe that good MATs should and will welcome this.
I do not need to add further to what other noble Lords have said. This was a Labour manifesto commitment, as my noble friend Lord Knight said, so all I ask my noble friend the Minister is: if not now, when? I hope that the answer will be, “On Report”.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, I very strongly support the amendment from my noble friend Lord Blunkett. I call him a friend because we have both borne the same responsibilities in the past and it looks as if his proposal has all-party support in the Committee. I assure your Lordships that that is very rare in education—very rare indeed.
Multi-academy trusts were created some years ago because of the success of academisation. So many private schools had hitherto been controlled by local authorities, which understood money, but many independent schools did not have much understanding of money until they got their budgets. There was a need for an institution to sit between the Department for Education and the educational world of schools, particularly as—as anyone who has ever served in the Department for Education as a Minister or Secretary of State knows—not many people in the department have actually run a school. It is not their particular skill; they have other skills in other matters.
I have had some experience of it because of the schools for which I am responsible—university technical colleges —of which there are now 44 with over 21,000 students. Many of these are now members of multi-academy trusts —in fact, two-thirds of them. This is quite challenging for the trusts because we are not ordinary secondary schools like the other ones that they control. We go from 14 to 18 only and tend to have a longer working day and shorter holidays, but the 14 year-olds spend two days a week—that is 40% of the time—in workshops, visiting companies or learning how to use machinery. UTCs are very different from the other secondary schools in the multi-academy trust.
Initially, I was quite concerned that multi-academy trusts would not recognise the differences, but in my experience they have. I think we had difficulty with only one of them, where all the other schools in the trust were primary schools, so there was not a great deal of experience of running a secondary school. I also discovered that the chairmen of multi-academy trusts are sometimes very able people—not quite as able or experienced as the noble Lord, Lord Knight—who have a need and an important responsibility for handling money. I strongly remember my noble friend Lord Agnew spending very long days trying to teach financial control directly to schools to ensure that they understood how to control their budgets and to get the best out of them. The best academy trusts do this, so I think they have now become part of the institution and I can see no reason why they should not be inspected.
They are not really directly responsible to anybody. I expect that the Secretary of State, but not many Secretaries of State, will spend time worrying about how MATs are run. It would be a very good idea to have a system of education for them and therefore I support that amendment.
Lord Nash (Con)
I support the amendments in the names of my noble friends Lady Barran and Lady Spielman and support the sentiment behind them. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Knight, that we should not rush to this, because I think Ofsted inspectors will need some training on it. Many of them still do not really understand MATs, and I am a little worried about boasting too much about organisational structure; it is more the results that count and educational outcomes, the support from the centre, personal development, safeguarding, careers, enrichment et cetera. Of course, it is fairly easy to inspect for value for money by reference to comparable statistics, so that could certainly be done. In principle, I support this concept and welcome the very eloquent intervention from the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett.
Lord Blunkett (Lab)
I am very grateful for the final intervention by the noble Baroness opposite. Collective memory has always been a problem in government. It is nice to know that there is something on a shelf somewhere, although we have had rather an experience over the last 14 months of sometimes pulling the wrong one off it.
I thank the Minister for her reply. It is perfectly feasible to square this circle. It is perfectly feasible to put in the Bill an enabling clause that allows the department, through the White Paper and beyond, to bring forward implementation. As has been suggested by a number of noble Lords, one can then sophisticate it with guidance or, if it requires it, regulation. We have got into a mindset of having to put things in the order that they were first thought of. It is difficult to get legislative approval within government. We used sometimes to manage it, not least when my noble friends Lady Blackstone and Lord Rooker were my representatives in this House, because they used to cause absolute sodding havoc. Normally they were right.
One time, I had the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the phone demanding the resignation of my noble friend Lord Rooker for something that he had said in the House. I said, “Well, there is one surefire way of making sure that everybody knows about it, Gordon, and that is to fire him”. On that note, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, for getting such a speedy response from the Minister. It is almost unknown. It gives me the opportunity to congratulate the Minister on being reappointed as the Minister for Skills. Not only that but she has it in two departments—the DWP and education. She is the most powerful Minister for Skills that has ever been appointed. I think she will make the most of it. This change is one of the most significant of the reshuffle.
Covid-19: Youth Unemployment
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(4 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his question, which is really valid. We have over 100,000 vacancies in Kickstart and I can assure him that everyone in the department is working at pace to secure good-quality outlets for young people. We are doing everything we can. We are working with the Prince’s Trust and all sorts of other organisations, and noble Lords will see Kickstart come into its own in the near future.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)
My Lords, we are having some difficulties connecting to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, we will move to the next—
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]
[Inaudible]—apprenticeships concerned, 70% were postponed or cancelled. Can I be heard or not? It says: “Your internet connection is unstable”. Shall I continue?
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)
I am afraid there is a problem with the connection, so we will move to the next speaker. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Janke.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Bates) (Con)
We will now try the noble Lord, Lord Baker of Dorking, again.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]
Is the Minister aware that youth unemployment was discovered to be at 20% by the Resolution Foundation last September? The Sutton Trust has said that graduate unemployment is at 45% and that the number of apprenticeships this year has been reduced by 70% or postponed. A recent government White Paper never mentioned youth unemployment. When will the Government realise that this is a major crisis that is rising and is going to get much worse, and that measures are needed?
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
The noble Lord is right to point out the level of unemployment among young people and graduates; I take no argument with that. But he asks when the Government will recognise this: we are working flat out to ensure that young people get the help they need to get a meaningful job and the skills they need to compete effectively in the job market. I can assure the noble Lord and the whole House that we are working at pace to achieve this.
Youth Unemployment
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(5 years ago)
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Lord Baker of Dorking
To ask Her Majesty’s Government, further to the estimate by the Office for National Statistics in Labour market overview, UK: October 2020, published on 13 October, that approximately 60 per cent of those unemployed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic are aged between 16 and 24, what action they are taking to reduce youth unemployment.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)
My Lords, the Government are taking unprecedented action to protect young people’s jobs, with more than 9 million of them supported via the furlough scheme. Earlier this year, we announced our £30 billion Plan for Jobs, which provides an unlimited number of Kickstart placements, recruits new youth employability coaches and establishes youth hubs across the country. We are also expanding our excellent sector-based work academy programme to offer bespoke opportunities to support claimants to fill job vacancies and pivot into new careers.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con) [V]
In July, about a quarter of a million 18 year-olds left schools, sixth-forms and other colleges. Most of them are now on the unemployment register. I accept that Kickstart will help trainees to some extent, but much more is needed. An unemployed 18 year-old should be able to take a one-year course, such as an HND or an HNC, to acquire better skills. If they do this, however, they must pay £6,000 or more for the course; often, they have to take out a loan. It is morally and politically unacceptable that we expect 18 year-olds to take out a loan to receive a training course. These courses must be free. I ask the Minister to convey my views to other Ministers because, rest assured, we will need more measures to reduce youth unemployment.
Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I am happy to relay to Ministers the noble Lord’s concerns about loans and the fact that 18 year-olds are asked to take them out. I will certainly pass his concerns on to the Department for Education as well. However, we have launched a wide-ranging youth employment programme. We have the National Careers Service and the new enterprise allowance. We are doubling the number of work coaches; please do not underestimate the work of these great people and the difference that they are making in getting young people into jobs, which is what we all want.
Employment: Young People
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(11 years, 9 months ago)
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Lord Freud
The apprenticeship is one of the most valuable ways of getting youngsters into the workforce. Clearly, sole traders are a valuable resource for that. One of the most interesting projects is called Working Rite, which pairs up youngsters with sole traders. That is something that we encourage.
Looking at the number of apprenticeships as a whole, in the three years since the election we have had nearly 1 million apprenticeships of people under 25. That is very encouraging; it is 50% higher than the equivalent three years beforehand.
Lord Baker of Dorking (Con)
My Lords, does the Minister not agree that the cost of youth unemployment today is, annually, £4.8 billion. If you allow for lost output, it is £10 billion. Should not the target for every school in the country be that when youngsters leave at 16 or 18 they either get a job, a higher apprenticeship, an advanced apprenticeship, go on to college to do A-levels or go to university? That is a target that university technical colleges have, and it is a target that is met.
Lord Freud
My Lords, I could not agree more with my noble friend. There are only four things one can do to help youngsters into the workforce: directly get them a job; training and education; apprenticeships; or work experience, which is a stepping stone. That is what Alison Wolf told us, and that is what the Government are aiming to do.
Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill
Lord Baker of Dorking Excerpts(12 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, the purpose of the Committee stage, as I understand it, is to scrutinise draft Bills, to propose amendments and to seek, where possible, the concurrence of the Government with those amendments. It is sad that throughout this Bill the Government have taken the view that they were right from the start and that any amendments which have been proposed are either otiose, excessive or outwith the purpose of the Bill. Here is an occasion where the Government can perhaps show a little magnanimity and say that there is serious concern, as a number of noble colleagues have said. Although one might have some confidence in the guidance issued by the department, it is only guidance. It does not need wild speculation about what future Secretaries of State may or may not do. The wording in the Bill gives some assurance which I believe is proper.
Some of us in this House still consider ourselves to be politicians, even if lapsed ones. Surely one factor we should recognise from the start is that there is a clamour in this country to send children to religious and church schools. It is certainly my experience. Why is this so? The view of the great populace is to favour the discipline and ethos of those church schools for their children. I was interested a few years ago to have a friend who was a headmistress of a Church of England school in the East End and almost 100% of her pupils were Bangladeshi. Why did they choose the church school? Because that community recognised the value of church schools.
I am not a Roman Catholic—in fact I am a nonconformist—but I know from my experience as a constituency Member the quality of the Roman Catholic tradition. Perhaps I might say in passing to the right reverend Prelate, I endorsed all that he said. He spoke well, not only on behalf of the Church of England, but also on behalf of the Roman Catholic Church. I was musing to myself as he spoke; would it not be good, from the point of view of the quality of legislation in this House, if we had some senior members of the Roman Catholic faith who could put their own views forward directly and not rely on the good will of someone who is part of a separated brethren?
Be that as it may, we are where we are and have to accept that a vast number of people want to send their children to those schools. They approve of the ethos of those schools. The Government purport throughout that they have provided adequate protections—the quadruple lock in relation to the Church of England and the protections in respect of teachers and parents. If they are so keen to provide those protections, let it be absolutely clear that here on the face of the Bill is the opportunity to do just that. In my judgment it is not otiose. It will have widespread acceptance from those who really value the ethos and values of our church schools. It is a test of how serious the Government are when they talk so much not only about the core principles of this Bill but the counterpart—a readiness to provide adequate protection for those who wish to continue in their own ethos, who accept the new legal basis but wish to continue to put forward the traditional views of marriage.
Lord Baker of Dorking
My Lords, I did not intend to speak in this debate but I have been referred to a few times, due only to the fact that I think I am the only living person in the Chamber who has been Secretary of State for Education.
I feel that this amendment is unnecessary for a variety of reasons. I speak as an Anglican and was rather surprised that my church had taken the view that it has on same-sex marriage. The law of the land will be changed on same-sex marriage, and for the established church to say in effect that it is contracting out of it and not to allow its churches to be used for it is not, I would have thought, in the tradition of Anglicanism—not the Anglicanism that I favour. The history of the Church of England from 1533 onwards shows that it is not so much a question of the tenets or the 39 articles but of what happened with individual vicars in their parish churches. If you look at how English vicars interpreted Anglicanism in the 17th and 18th centuries, there is an infinite variety of activity. I should have thought the Anglican church would have done much better to have followed that practice than the one that it has followed.
That aside, on this particular matter, the position is in fact exceedingly clear. Where the state has provided birth control and various government agencies promote it, teachers in the Catholic Church will make it very clear that this is something which they object to and they think is fundamentally wrong. It is not a tenet of their faith but a practice, and the same is true of divorce. A great deal of discretion is already happening every day in our schools. I think it would happen in this case with the Anglican Church regarding sex education. I went to a primary church school in Lancashire and we did not have any sex education at all. I suppose that sex had not been discovered so much in those days. I even went to a secondary grammar school in Lancashire for two years and we did not have any sex education there either. I know we were very repressed sort of people—limited and all that—but it was alien to us.
Today it is clear that when sex education is taught in schools—I promoted it when I was Secretary of State—it is very much in the context of a loving relationship. It was the point that the noble Lord, Lord Pannick, made. It was not just the act of physical gratification—immediate and then finished with. It was to establish a loving relationship and that was a very essential part of all sex education. So when the matter of marriage comes up, it would be quite possible for any teacher, even a clergyman teacher at a Church of England school, to say they believed very strongly that marriage should be between a man and a wife and the purpose is to create a family. Even when he is talking to 12 and 13 year-olds, they will know a lot about other people who do not live like that. It has all changed today. It will not be a matter of teaching but of discussion—that is what it will be more like in actual practice. The teacher will be able to say, without fear of persecution and quite clearly, “This is the view that we believe in the Anglican Church at the moment, and we think that is the position”. So I believe that this amendment is not necessary.