Education: Pupils and Young People

Lord Bishop of Wakefield Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Wakefield]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for introducing this important debate. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of officially opening the Trinity Academy in Halifax. Trinity Academy is in a deprived area of north Halifax and the diocese of Wakefield is the lead sponsor. The academy is a solution to the continuing, difficult and nationally publicised problems with the Ridings School. Presumably that was the sort of school to which the noble Baroness referred in her speech.

The academy solution was worked out and worked for under the academy policy of the previous Government and we in the diocese of Wakefield are grateful to them for all that they did to make it possible. We are also very grateful to the ministerial team at the new Department of Education. I would particularly like to thank the noble Lord, Lord Hill, who helped us to proceed to academy status, and pay tribute to him for being with us today. I think we encountered each other earlier on his journey home, before he had that unnerving experience. I also thank the Department for Education for its commitment to funding the new building project there. New buildings are crucial for nurturing respect and self-esteem and will allow the academy to be fit for the purpose of providing a modern education. I am pleased to hear, therefore, that Her Majesty’s Government are committed to 600 new building programmes.

The bearing of Trinity Academy on this debate is that it will foster excellence within a poorer area of our diocese, which is indeed in an area of multiple deprivation. In his address at the opening, the principal spoke movingly, noting how teachers who spend time and energy in taking an interest in their pupils could change the life chances of their children. This had been the principal’s own experience and was why he was committed to excellence in education. This is surely the key to the relationship between excellence and education; excellence can be nurtured and passed on to others by those who inspire and press students to strive for their best. Among other things, education is the handing over of the skills and tools for learning and the passing on of wisdom to raise up the next generation. Where we have fostered it, excellence will be seen to grow and spread into all areas of life.

Investment in education can never be a waste, but it is always an investment in people, communities and whole areas. Trinity Academy is one example of the Church of England’s historic commitment to schooling for entire communities in less well off areas. We still hold to that commitment. There are now 38 academies sponsored and at least part funded by the church in areas of deprivation. Of course, academies are not the only option, but it is our hope, in the context of the historic partnership of church and state, that Her Majesty’s Government will continue in the same direction that they have pursued in developing Trinity Academy in Halifax. I can think of two other local schools where the same is true—the Sentamu Academy in Hull and the Church of England academy in Scunthorpe. We would like to see a continuance of academies opening in deprived areas and a focus on schools that do not yet excel. In the diocese of Wakefield, we are also pursuing other options for academies with co-sponsors in different LEAs and unitary authorities.

We hope that the present focus on outstanding schools will broaden out more fully to encompass other schools. That would indicate a clear commitment to the fostering of excellence in all our communities and for all children and young people. As I opened the Trinity Academy, I returned to the earliest origins of the concept of the term. It was Plato who said:

“By education I mean that training in excellence from youth upward which makes the young passionately desire to be perfect citizens, and teaches them … justice”.

This is the only education that deserves the name.