Education: 11 to 16 Year-olds

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 8th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is plenty of room in the curriculum; I refer the House to the 2011 review of these matters by the noble Baroness, Lady Wolf, which made it clear that the curriculum has space within it for all the subjects which the Government value and which the noble Baroness refers to.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, what is not being mentioned is the massive decline in the teaching of foreign languages, at the very point when we are trying to engage worldwide with new trade deals—and, indeed, with our position in the world. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to address this, and can they also look at some of the very creative language clubs and so on that can be added on after school? These are often ways of exploring languages without loading the main curriculum even further.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government’s view would be “both/and”. I think it is critical, for the reasons that the right reverend Prelate sets out, that modern languages form part of our curriculum. We are developing a new language hubs programme and offering significant training bursaries for language teachers and scholarships for French, German and Spanish trainees. We share the right reverend Prelate’s focus on this issue.

Schools: RAAC

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 1st February 2024 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Addington, for securing this debate on a subject that has already been raised in this House and is adversely affecting a significant minority of our schools. I pay tribute to those hard-pressed and sometimes overstressed heads, teachers, ancillary staff and pupils who are still having to cope with this on a daily basis; it really is having an effect on the ordinary running of some of our schools across our nation. I think, for example, of the staff and students of St Leonard’s Catholic School in County Durham, who have been extremely adversely affected by this crisis; the pupils are still being taught in temporary classrooms five months on. The DfE announced this week that it cannot make any exam dispensations for the GCSE and A-level students at this school, despite experts advising a 10% boost to grades to compensate for disruption to education.

Will the Minister consider carrying out an assessment to ascertain whether results at schools that have been adversely disrupted by the RAAC crisis are lower than those projected or expected at schools where education has not been disrupted—and, if results are shown to be considerably lower, to see it as a case for any regrading or adjusting of exams? I ask that we remember that exam results will shape the futures and the aspirations of these young people, and it would seem a great injustice to pupils from a handful of schools if they were severely disadvantaged simply because their school buildings were not fit for purpose. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee have both called for the department to set date targets for the eradication of reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete in schools. Can the Minister confirm whether a target for the eradication of RAAC will be determined, as the Department for Health and Social Care has done for the NHS estate?

The Association of School and College Leaders has pointed out that parents are taking their children out of those schools that are affected by RAAC over concerns about disruption to their education and a lack of access to facilities such as science labs. Schools affected by the RAAC crisis are seeing their school rolls drop. Not only are current numbers of pupils dropping, but RAAC-affected schools are reporting reduced admission applications for this coming September. Given that pupil numbers are one of the ways the Government determine funding, will the Minister consider what financial support or protections can be put in place for these schools?

My final point is that the RAAC crisis is one part of what is a much wider backlog of maintenance and repair that is desperately needed across our school estate. I know that many noble Lords will have heard this statistic quoted before: a National Audit Office report from last year showed that there were around 700,000 children being taught in unsafe or ageing buildings. Earlier this month, one primary school in Devon reported temperatures being so low that children were keeping their gloves and coats on during lessons—and this school did not even qualify for any extra money for repairs.

The Association of School and College Leaders has also called on the Government to commit new money for the removal of RAAC, rather than using money that was already set aside for buildings and is desperately needed for the ongoing and already promised repairs programme. I echo this call and ask the Minister to confirm that schools identified as a priority for rebuilding for other issues, not RAAC issues, will still be getting the funding they need during the coming years.

Schools: Special Educational Needs

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I recognise the point my noble friend makes, and she will be aware that we are running a number of pathfinder projects and testing some of our new approaches, including for children with physical disabilities. I hope my noble friend is pleased that in the improvement plan, we have added a fourth early standard. In additional to early language support, autism and mental health and wellbeing, we are also focusing on children with visual and hearing impairments whose performance at school currently is well below their potential.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, the Education Committee report of September 2023 recommends that the department scrutinise the use of alternative provision settings and ensure that children and young people with SEND are transferred there only after having a statutory assessment, and not use them as a behavioural management tool. What steps has the department taken towards addressing this issue?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

Obviously, the ESC report to which the right reverend Prelate refers is very recent, so the department is considering very seriously the recommendations from the committee. However, I absolutely recognise that behind the right reverend Prelate’s question is a concern about the quality of alternative provision; but, used well, it can provide an opportunity for early intervention and to return children to mainstream education.

Life Skills and Citizenship

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, the diocese which I am privileged to serve has 138 church schools in it and another group of independent schools with Christian foundations. I am glad to have the opportunity to visit them regularly—I have been in one already this morning. As I go round, I am heartened by the teaching I see already going on on citizenship and value-based education. I want to comment, though, on just a couple of things and to suggest that, while it is important that the Government are clear what they are doing, there is actually a vital role for families and a vital role in collaborating with other bodies that are seeking to do similar sort of work.

I want to comment on financial education. The Government recognise the importance of financial skills, but research indicates that children form their habits around money by about the age of seven, yet no time is allocated in primary school curricula for financial education: 5% of parents believe their children are leaving school with the adequate skills to manage their money. Though not part of the national curriculum, programmes such as LifeSavers, which the Church of England is working on, could be a huge help, teaching children about this important life skill. What steps are His Majesty’s Government taking to work further with organisations providing financial education?

Then I shall say a very brief word on citizenship. In this era of increasing partisanship and division, our fundamental British principles of mutual respect and freedom of conscience are vital. Again, the Church of England’s project, Living Well Together, aims to help young people and equip them to better understand different beliefs. Is the Minister aware of this project, and will His Majesty’s Government give their support to it?

Childcare Reform Package

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My noble friend makes, as ever, very good points. I am not sure what my right honourable friend the Chancellor would think of being described as “benign”, but I leave that to her to take a risk on. I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill; I do not think I addressed the points she raised about childminders. I echo the sentiments of both noble Baronesses about the important role that childminders play. We know that they have reduced in number in recent years, and I am aware of the issues about payment terms to which my noble friend refers. We are working with all local authorities and with the Local Government Association. Part of our consultation, which will start shortly, is looking exactly at our funding arrangements with local authorities—how much of the funding they retain, how much is passed on and, importantly, how quickly it is passed on, especially to small providers.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating His Majesty’s Government for what is a very forward-looking and exciting series of announcements. The research we have on the first 1,000 years and many other pieces of research show just how vital this is, and it absolutely plays into the last debate about our economy in the long run.

Will the Minister comment a little more on how we are going to recruit the people we will need? Anecdotally, as I go round, I hear that people are already trying to recruit and that it is not proving easy. There is a lot of competition. To touch on the issue of the maths qualification that the Minister mentioned, I wonder whether, as well as accelerated and degree-level apprenticeships, there will be quite a wide variety of ways into this, including training on the job, being paid while you are doing it and so on, so that we attract people who may have a set of skills that is absolutely ideal for this but who might otherwise be put off by what might feel like high hurdles for them to enter this important area of work.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I think the right reverend Prelate meant to mention the first 1,000 days, but I heard “the first 1,000 years”, which sounded very biblical.

Schools: “Ghost Children”

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I absolutely can reassure the House of that. I express my thanks to the Children’s Commissioner for her work in this area, particularly on children who are not on any school roll at all and are missing education entirely. The noble Baroness may be aware that we set up an attendance alliance, chaired by the Secretary of State, which meets monthly and is working with a number of experts in the field, sharing best practice with schools and other stakeholders to make sure that we get children back to school as quickly as possible.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, this has the potential to be a major safeguarding issue, which many professionals are concerned about. What are His Majesty’s Government doing to help schools work with local social services teams to ensure that we have identified who these children are, that their risk is assessed and that they are given the proper support that they need?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

There is a safeguarding risk, but there is also a danger of conflating different groups of children. Of those who are persistently absent—those who miss 10% or more of sessions in school—the vast majority have authorised absence for sickness reasons. However, the right reverend Prelate is right that we need to focus on particularly vulnerable children; we have set out new guidance with expectations that local authorities should have termly targeted support meetings with schools to put together a plan for exactly the sort of pupil to which the right reverend Prelate refers.

Schools: Financial Literacy

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 20th April 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote financial literacy in schools.

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

My Lords, we work closely with the Money and Pensions Service and the Treasury to support the effective teaching of financial education in schools. The Money and Pensions Service has published financial education guidance for primary and secondary schools and we will deliver webinars for schools in due course. Our national network of 40 maths hubs also supports schools to improve their mathematics teaching, including financial content in the mathematics curriculum, based on best practice from east Asia.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

I thank the Minister for her reply and I am glad to hear what His Majesty’s Government are doing. I do not know whether the Minister is aware, but the Church of England has been working on a project called Lifesavers, which came out of one of the Archbishops’ Commissions. It has so far delivered financial literacy training for 30,000 school pupils and trained 2,000 teaching staff. Given that only 5% of parents believe that their children are leaving school with adequate financial literacy, what assessment have His Majesty’s Government made of Lifesavers and other similar school projects, such as GoHenry, and how can they help these projects as we are seeking to roll them out and increase financial literacy?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The Government are very grateful to organisations such as Lifesavers for the important work they do providing very useful support to teachers and schools. According to the Money and Pensions Service, about 6.3 million children between the ages of five and 17 received some form of financial education across just over 100 programmes, so there is a great variety on offer across the country.

SEND and Alternative Provision

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

On the noble Baroness’s first point about teachers having lost confidence in the system, I hope that some of the work that we are doing will help rebuild that. As she knows, the national standards will set much clearer definitions of need in particular, rather than necessarily diagnosis, so that there is clarity and consistency across schools and local authority areas.

We are also producing a number of practice guides for teachers and schools, which we hope will be really helpful. They focus on what are perhaps three of the most prevalent and important areas—autism, speech and language, and mental health and well-being—which, as the noble Baroness knows very well, are all extremely important issues. We are establishing the nine regional expert partnerships to create this co-operation between parents, local authorities, schools and health, ensuring that whatever we are doing is tested in practice to make sure that it works in the interests of both the child and the workforce.

I imagine that the question on the admissions issue is, in part, an extension of the first question on confidence. The other thing we see which is really different in different parts of the country is the degree of co-operation between real specialists. In some places, there are providers of special schools with huge expertise, which are in a position to work very collaboratively with their local mainstream schools, but that is less the case in other places. In the areas of alternative provision, behaviour management and support, and special educational needs and disabilities, that collaboration and co-operation is felt to be a really productive and rich place to start to ensure that every child can get to the school they want to go to.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, I too thank His Majesty’s Government for the improvement plan. I commend what they are doing to try to get a much more integrated approach and some of the resources mentioned in the plan. However, I share the concern raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Twycross, about implementation. The stories I pick up from grass-roots situations in Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire, where I serve, show that there are still some very serious problems, and some children are now being failed immediately.

I will ask a couple of questions. First, having a specialised workforce in place will be crucial, so can the Minister tell us what support they expect to receive from the DHSC, especially as such a great strain is placed on the health and social care workforce? The second question is about diagnosis, so that children can have access to the support mentioned in the content of the plan. What support is the DHSC able to provide to CAMHS to ensure that there is support to deliver this plan?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

As the right reverend Prelate said, that co-operation between health, education and children’s social care is absolutely critical, so that they are closely joined together. We will bring more clarity and clearer accountability through new inspections conducted jointly by Ofsted and the CQC, which will focus very much on outcomes and experiences for children, young people and their families. In turn, that will feed into and reflect the local inclusion plans, where health is a critical partner.

On issues around the mental health workforce, the right reverend Prelate will be aware that we are doing a lot of work to ensure that we have direct support in schools, so that, wherever possible, mental health issues do not need to escalate to CAMHS.

Food Price Rises: Public Sector Food Provision

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Monday 27th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

This Government have made huge strides in extending access to free school meals, with the introduction of universal infant free school meals and the introduction of free school meals in further education. More than a third of pupils are now eligible for free school meals. We keep the situation under constant review.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, security is one of the most fundamental responsibilities of any Government, yet with huge hikes in the cost of food from overseas, our domestic market is declining. Take, for example, the outstanding market garden sector in the Lea Valley in my diocese. About 10% of them had to close in the last year because of the cost of heating. What are the Government going to do to ensure that those market gardens are able to sustain themselves, to guarantee our basic food security in this country?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I cannot comment on the specific market gardens to which the right reverend Prelate refers, but I absolutely get the spirit of his question. He will be aware that Defra works very closely with the food industry in this country to monitor where risks are in relation to supply and to make sure that any disruption can be addressed.

Education: Philosophy

Lord Bishop of St Albans Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I would be absolutely delighted to meet the teachers that the noble Baroness recommends. She will be aware that the disciplines of critical thinking are throughout our curriculum, including in the early years and foundation stages.

[The Lord Bishop of St Albans]

My Lords, it is not only about critical thinking; we need to have a place where those ideas can be exchanged, which is about free speech. I understand that the University of Cambridge has recently appointed a philosophy professor, who is teaching classes in free speech. Does the Minister think this is something we need in all our universities, and should it start in our schools as well?

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

The right reverend Prelate will be aware of the legislation we were debating in Grand Committee only yesterday afternoon on the importance of free speech in our universities. The Government think that is of critical importance, as is academic freedom, but of course, it needs to start in our schools, and I have seen many fantastic examples of teachers engaging with children and giving them those skills and the confidence to debate.