Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak briefly in support of Amendment 112A, which relates to a point that I raised at Second Reading. As the noble Lord, Lord Soley, said, there has to be a check on parents to avoid those who might abuse the freedoms. The local authority may be the right place to do that but the merits or otherwise of home education versus school education, and the structure of the curriculum, can end up as matters of educational doctrine. If a local education authority takes a view that starts as biased against home education and the freedoms within, it may well take a view that is prejudicial to the parents, in the way in which my noble friend Lord Lucas said.

There has to be a right for parents to go to some appeal process, whether in the form of the amendment or the ombudsman proposed by my noble friend Lord Wei. It may well be that the objections to the way in which the local authority runs its schools is the primary reason why somebody wants to educate their children separately. To have that education authority then be judge and jury over whether the child is being given an adequate alternative education just allows one set of educational doctrines to run roughshod over other people’s rights.

I completely accept the need for checks on parents but, as others have said, my noble friend the Minister needs to think about how, when the Bill comes back, there can be proper provision to deal with this matter—whether in the form of the amendment or something similar.

[Baroness Whitaker (Lab)]

My Lords, I may have omitted to declare an interest as chair of the Department for Education stakeholders’ group and other similar interests listed in the register. If so, my apologies.

I have added my name to Amendment 143I in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. I should make it clear that it is the increase in fines and custody that I have difficulty with. It might be better to do away with fines altogether.

I am heartened by the statement in the department’s factsheet that

“The government does not intend to criminalise parents”


in respect of school attendance orders. But Clause 50 does not achieve this aim.

When I was a magistrate, I recall cases of parents who, with the best will in the world, simply could not control their children. They were rarely parents who could manage the fines prescribed. As for the custodial option, the Farmer review emphasised how

“disruptive and costly short sentences are to family life”

and ties. What does the imprisonment of a parent do for a child’s attitude to school?

There are deep reasons for school refusal that should be investigated, as I also recall from my time as a teacher. Different means to ensure the essential participation in education that children must have must be developed, and indeed in some schools are adopted, but in this time of a cost of living crisis, at least we should not increase the penalties, which can be justified in very few cases.

In conclusion, I take issue with the “hammers and nuts” of the noble Lord, Lord Wei. The nut of not being in school is a very large nut indeed. Of course there are parents who educate their children well and who are going to have no trouble with a register, although I quite understand that there needs to be some clarity, but children who are badly educated or not educated account for a much larger number. It may be that noble Lords do not come into contact with these children very often. In other debates in this Committee, we have spoken about where these children are and why they are not educated. It would take a lot of time to go through this, but it is a much larger number than the number of children who are well educated. We really must do something about this. That is why the register is a good idea.

Schools Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

2nd reading & Lords Hansard - Part one
Monday 23rd May 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell (Con)]

My Lords, I mention my interest as the governor of a specialist music school. There is clearly much to debate in the Bill, but I will focus on two areas of provision: grammar schools and home education.

I welcome the safeguards in the Bill for existing grammar schools, but I regret that it is not taking the opportunity to open up the development of new grammar schools. There are now just 163 grammar schools, in 36 LEAs, which means that children in 75% of England do not have access to a free academic school. I recognise that there are of course conflicting views on how much better children of high ability do at grammar schools, but you do not need statistics to appreciate that these children are stretched and motivated when they are in a cohort of children of a similar standard and that this allows the teacher to move at a faster pace and cover more material.

But it is not just about academic progress. What those who have not experienced these schools often fail to understand is the lifting of aspirations and confidence when those from less privileged backgrounds are in an environment and social mix where they can be encouraged to aim for the top. A top stream in some comprehensives may be able to replicate this, but most do not have enough children at that level. Sadly, this is most likely to be true for schools in deprived social areas. So, as the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, once observed, the elimination of grammar schools has replaced selection by ability with selection by postcode. If you are a talented child living in the wrong postcode—in the 75% of local authorities without grammar schools—your chance of getting the top-class education that you deserve has been taken away.

Of course, critics say that selection unfairly favours the children of middle-class parents. That may be true, but those children will benefit from their parental support in any system. That is no reason to take away the opportunity for high-ability children from less advantaged backgrounds to at least have a chance of gaining an education that can transform their lives.

Just to be clear, I am advocating not the return of compulsory 11-plus but simply the availability of free academic schools for anyone with the ability to apply to them. This is similar to the German gymnasium schools, for example, which operate so effectively. I do not understand why, in this country, it is rightly regarded as acceptable to single out the highest youthful talent in, say, football, swimming or drama and give it special support, while it is regarded as divisive to provide the same special support to children with academic talent. These are individuals who may go on to take valuable leadership roles in society.

The new Labor Prime Minister in Australia summed up his philosophy as:

“No one held back. No one left behind.”


That would be a good subtitle for the Bill. Expanding access to grammar schools is an important aspect of ensuring that our brightest children are not held back. I hope that it might be possible for the Government to go further on that aspiration.

The second area that I wanted to touch on is the provisions for home education. An estimated 80,000 children are not in school and are being educated at home. For the record, I note that that number includes some of my own grandchildren. Although the law puts the responsibility on parents to ensure that their children get an adequate education, it is of course important to ensure that these children are actually getting that and that the freedoms of home education are not being abused. So I strongly support the introduction of a simple register that, for the first time, would enable us to know who these children are. But I am not sure that it is appropriate for the Bill to say that a child can be taken out of a school and placed on that register only if the school agrees. It may be that a conflict with the school is the primary reason for choosing home education.

I fear that the Bill then goes too far in enabling local authorities to prescribe and collect detailed and potentially intrusive information about the means and methods by which parents are providing this education. If a local authority judges that the curriculum or teaching methods do not conform with its view of how children should be educated, it would then have extensive powers to require the child to attend a regular school. That provision leaves many parents worried that their existing freedom to choose how they educate their children will in practice be denied.

I recognise this is a difficult balance, but I urge the Minister to listen to the arguments on this and consider whether it might be better to monitor the output from home education rather than giving LEAs powers to control the inputs—for example, having an advisory service with home visits that can make informed assessments about whether each home-educated child is making the progress expected. If there are not adequate resources to do this for every child, parents could perhaps be required to provide an annual report setting out what progress the child has made, which might highlight specific cases where inadequate or unconvincing reports raise concerns.

I suggest that the Government need to review these provisions in the Bill carefully to ensure they do not go too far in giving local authorities excessive power to impose conformity on the freedom that is there for those who want to challenge conformity.

Education Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Blackwell]

124: Clause 52, page 42, line 39, at end insert “, and
“(c) it is specially organised to make special educational provision for the needs of pupils with high ability or aptitude for learning; or high ability or aptitude in musical, artistic or other specialist skills approved in guidance issued by the Secretary of State.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 124 I shall speak also to Amendments 125 and 139 in the same group. These amendments return to the subject of providing appropriate education to meet the needs of pupils with a high ability or aptitude in learning or other specialist skills. We had a brief debate on this in the last day in Committee before the summer Recess. There was general support on all sides of the Grand Committee for the view that, despite the importance of providing appropriate education for high-ability children, the education system does not do this particularly well at the moment. We could do better.

It is important for several reasons. First, all children deserve the opportunity for educational excellence. It is also important for the national interest. The top few per cent of our children in ability and aptitude are those who go on to be, in many cases, the leaders in business, the arts and the sciences. If we are to compete globally, we cannot afford not to have our most able children educated to the highest international standards for the good of society as a whole.

It is also important for social equity reasons because, at the moment, we have an education system where the most able children from poorer backgrounds are often unable to achieve entry to schools that can meet their expectations, and the better schools in many parts of the country are accessible only to those who can afford to pay for them.

For all those reasons, it is important that we provide for the needs of the most able children. The amendments that we discussed at our last sitting concerned ways of imposing an obligation on schools to meet the needs of high-ability children and the possibility that academies might group together to provide common facilities and classes for groups of high-ability children—were there insufficient numbers in any one school to make that effective on a single-school basis.

My amendments take the same principle a step further by recognising that the needs of those children may be best be met by having an academy, covering an area, which specialises in providing for the needs of high-ability children. If we take a year group in any school of 150 to 200 and the top 5 per cent of the ability range, we are talking about seven to 10 children. Seven or 10 children are not enough to form a class that can devote the appropriate skills and resources to teaching that top-ability range. Academic research suggests that high-ability children perform best when they are taught in peer groups where the class size is 20 or more, but to achieve the appropriate use of resources, you often need a much larger group to devote the specialist teaching from which they can benefit.

The simple notion here is that the academies framework should be flexible enough to allow schools which are specialist academies providing for high-ability and high-aptitude children. They would not be narrowly defined by a local catchment area, because we would not want many of them, but I can imagine major cities or large towns having one or two. That would cope with those of the top few per cent of children who wanted to apply to go to those schools. There would not be a compulsory 11-plus; there would not be compulsory entry; but they would be available for children of high ability who could benefit from them. That would enable children of whatever income level or background to have access to schools that could fulfil their potential.

I stress that I am thinking particularly about children from the less advantaged parts of our cities and country, who are at the moment disadvantaged. They are the children who may have high potential but whose local school is likely to be one of the less-well performing schools just because of the peer group and the circumstances of the school, whereas children of better-off parents may well be able to afford to move to a postcode where the average level of schooling is higher—or, of course, may be able to take advantage of private education. It is the children from poorer backgrounds whom our current system disadvantages, because in many parts of the country there is no provision for high-ability children to have a first-class academic education within a peer group of similarly able and motivated children within the state sector.

It is not just academic provision which is important here. We all know that children need confidence from the support of being in an environment where they are encouraged to raise their aspirations and lift their eyes to what they may achieve. What many of the grammar schools and direct-grant schools provided in the past for many of our generation was the ability for children from those less advantaged backgrounds to mix with children in a peer group that enabled them to realise that their horizons could be wider. They could aspire to reach the top of our professions and businesses, and, indeed, aspire to political careers. It is important that such academies are provided to meet the needs of able children from less privileged backgrounds.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I do not think that it is a point of merit, as it were, and I would not claim that it were. It is a practical point. There are a number of schools in the maintained sector where selection already takes place. We think that it is right that they should be able to become academies and that, as has always been the case, they should be able to expand. The point about independent schools coming into the maintained sector and retaining selective arrangements is that it would increase the number of selective schools in the system. For reasons of practicality rather than anything else, the Government have come to the view that we do not want to increase the number of schools where selection takes place.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I thank everyone who contributed. As the Minister suggests, I am not entirely happy with his answer. The status quo may be a pragmatic English outcome but it is difficult to defend a situation where in certain parts of the country grammar schools still exist and children from modest-income or low-income families have the opportunity to get some of the best education on offer, but in large parts of the country there are no grammar schools and children from similar backgrounds do not have that opportunity. Despite all the years of effort to ensure that all schools provide the best education for children of high ability, we know that it is very difficult to get that to work. There are many areas where those children are therefore destined not to fulfil their potential because they do not have access to the kind of education that many of our generation had, and which enabled us to move up the social structure. I find that difficult to accept as a pragmatic outcome, although I understand the reasons for it.

The second reason why this disappoints me is that we might be missing just how important it is to the future prosperity of this country that we educate our top-ability children to their full potential. We will be competing in a world where our brain power and skills are among the main factors that will allow us to prosper. To have a large part of our population without access to the best education and the best opportunities to develop is to throw away our chances of national growth and prosperity. This is not a position that will sustain for very long as a messy compromise. I shall reflect on what the Minister has said before we come back to this on Report, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 124 withdrawn.

Education Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Blackwell]

106: After Clause 35, insert the following new Clause—
“Duty to provide for the needs of high-ability pupils
In determining the nature of their educational provision, all maintained schools, Academies and free schools must have regard to meeting the special learning requirements of children within their admissions group who have or subsequently demonstrate high ability or aptitude for learning.”

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 107 and 119. Given the hour, I will try to be brief. These amendments relate to points I made at Second Reading about the importance of providing a proper learning environment in our schools for children of high ability and high aptitude. Although they all relate to that, they are not consequential, and therefore at subsequent stages of this Bill it may be appropriate to consider them separately. I must also make it clear that none of these relates to the admission procedures of schools. In the words of the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, they talk about how best to teach all the children who come through the school door.

Amendment 106 puts a duty on schools simply to provide for the needs of high-ability pupils. I use the terms “high-ability” and “high-aptitude” because I want to make clear that we are talking about latent as well as demonstrated capability. It is clearly important that standards are high for all children and we make all schools excellent, but we must make sure that the most able children are properly catered for. This is an argument about fairness, that these children, like all children, should be able to fulfil their potential. It is also an argument about what is important for the nation because the most able children are those from whom our future leaders in all spheres of activity often come. If we are going to compete on a global stage, we need to make sure that the most able children have the highest possible standards against global competitors. We need that to apply to children in the state sector, not just those children who are able to go through the private sector.

The amendment does not prescribe how schools should make educational provision for high-ability children but clearly one of the most common ways of doing that is through streaming or setting. The latest figures from Ofsted are for 2006-07, and suggest that 14 per cent of children in primary schools are setted or streamed, excluding PE. In secondary school that rises to 46 per cent, but that means that 54 per cent are not setted or streamed. Interestingly, in maths 78 per cent are setted or streamed, in contrast to 51 per cent in languages and only 34 per cent for geography. The question that that raises is why standards are considered less important in geography or languages than they are in maths. If streaming or setting are appropriate to deal with high-ability children in maths, are they not equally important for other subjects, particularly for those children who need to get high grades in a number of subjects in order to progress to the best universities?

This is not the time for a long debate about this. I recognise that there are counterviews, including the argument that other children benefit from having high-ability children in the same class. The counter to that is that there is evidence that both sets of children can benefit if they have teaching best suited to their aptitude and ability. In any case, it is important for the whole of society that the most able children are allowed to excel. Putting this duty on schools without prescribing how they do it would require them to address the question of how they are providing for the needs of the most able children and allow them to defend whatever method they believe they have to fulfil that requirement.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Lord responds, I think that I am right in thinking that a Select Committee of this House, when discussing science education, drew particular attention to the lack of lab technicians and the difficulty that that posed for young people to spend time in the lab to do experiments. I encourage the Minister to consider that issue and consider what progress has been made since that report was published two years ago.

[Lord Blackwell]

I thank my noble friend for her response and thank the other noble Lords who have taken part in this debate. Some extremely helpful and interesting comments came in this brief exchange. It is clear to me that the amendments could be improved, if they were to be pursued. Obviously, I will want to reflect on what the Minister said about what the Government are already doing and come to a view on whether more should be done that the amendments would encourage. We may want to return to them on Report but, for the moment, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 106 withdrawn.

Education Bill

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I welcome the Bill, especially the focus on helping with discipline, the greater freedoms for academies and the emphasis on measuring ourselves against international standards. However, I want to focus on one area which is ignored in the Bill and has been neglected in government legislation so far, and I should like to explore whether it could be added to the Bill as it passes through the House.

My concern is around the provision of high-quality education tailored to the needs of the most able pupils. It is of course important to raise standards across the board and to focus attention on raising standards in those schools covering disadvantaged areas where high standards are most difficult to achieve, and I fully agree with my noble friend Lady Stowell that we need brilliant doers as well as brilliant thinkers. But the most able children also deserve special attention. We should not forget that it is the most able children from whom the leaders of the future will often be drawn—the scientists, engineers, artists, business leaders and politicians who make the breakthroughs and create the wealth and social advance that the nation as a whole benefits from. Not only that, we need to ensure that very able children from less advantaged backgrounds are able to get top-quality education and rise to the top of their chosen field as a crucial aspect of encouraging social mobility—providing role models to raise aspirations in their local communities as well as delivering on our shared ideal of a fair and meritocratic society.

I fear that over time we have moved to a situation where the highest quality education is no longer open to all children based on merit, but is increasingly the preserve of wealthier families who can pay for private education or a house in an affluent area. That is neither fair nor a good development for society as a whole, so I would like to explore a number of possible amendments to this Bill to support the aims of fairness and access to high-quality education for all, regardless of their background.

First, I would like to explore whether it is possible to apply admission arrangements collectively to a group of schools, a group of academies or others in a federation. The group of schools would continue to admit all abilities in their locality, but one school in the group could be designated to offer specialised, top-stream educational learning in selected subjects that would be open to all pupils from all the schools within the group who were considered to have the ability to benefit from a faster and deeper pace of learning. This is no different in principle from the current arrangements whereby one school may offer specialist subject teaching—for example, Russian at A-level—which is then open to pupils from other schools on a shared basis.

Under this arrangement, there would be no admissions criteria based on ability to get into the school or schools, and the decision to refer a pupil to the fast-track classes could be taken at any age rather than at one fixed point. As well as making it economically possible to provide specialist teaching for a group of high-ability children by aggregating them together across a number of schools, this arrangement would recognise the well established benefits that high achievers gain from being taught in a class with other high-ability children. In one study at York University, for example, the achievement of children in the top 5 per cent ability range was shown to be significantly higher when they were in a year group with 20 or more other high-ability children than when they were in a year group with fewer than 10 other very able students. There may already be more flexibility to move in this direction under existing legislation, but I would like to explore whether amendments to the Bill could help achieve this aim.

Secondly, and with the same objective, I wonder whether we might not have a general requirement on all schools, particularly academies, to make adequate provision to enable pupils of high ability to achieve their potential, whether through setting, streaming or other tailored teaching methods. We put other general requirements on schools, so why not a general requirement to provide a fair opportunity for high-ability pupils? We could then perhaps also amend Clause 52 regarding Ofsted inspections, to require the Ofsted inspector also to consider whether the education provided by the school meets the special needs of high-ability pupils.

Thirdly, we do have some very high-quality academic schools that in past years were open to all as direct grant schools, but which chose to convert to private status when the direct grant status was abolished. I myself was a free-school-meals pupil at one such direct grant school, and I have no doubt that I owe a lot to the opportunities opened up by that completely free, state-funded education. What those schools provided was not only academic excellence but—just as important —the social constants that children from less advantaged backgrounds need to believe that they can aim for the top. We now have, through the Academies Act, the framework to welcome such schools back into the state-funded sector. However, to make that possible, I believe we would need to amend the restrictions on admissions policy so that these schools, like existing grammar schools that switch to academy status, can retain their existing admissions policy based on merit. I cannot see why, given that these excellent schools exist and continue to deliver some of the best academic results in the country, we would not want to open their doors to all children of ability, regardless of their social background or parental income, rather than leaving poor children locked out at the gates.

Finally, the most wide-ranging change would be to allow academies to opt for a specialism as a selective academic school. That may be a step too far for many, but again I think it is something we should consider. So I welcome this Bill and I look forward to my noble friend’s response to the debate. I will then reflect on how some of these points may be advanced as the Bill proceeds through this House.

Education: Pupils and Young People

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Perry for opening this debate, and the Minister for being here. Like others in this House, I am passionate about excellence in education. However, despite many good things in our schools, I am sometimes sad and frustrated at the way this generation has let down those who sought to follow in our footsteps, by waging a misguided and socially divisive war against that great engine of social mobility; selective education based on merit.

We talk about excellence. Of course, excellence for all is fundamental. Like others, I support the Government’s programme of returning power to teachers and parents, and opening up choice and competition through academies and free schools. However, we must talk also about excellence for the most able. All children are born equal, but, as my noble friend Lady Perry pointed out, they are not all born equal in ability or aptitude. We recognise that freely in sports, music and dance. We provide tailored training and support to create Olympic champions. However, somehow we deny, or are embarrassed by, the same logic applied to academic ability. Over the past 40 years, we have destroyed many excellent grammar schools and made selection a dirty word, yet there are many reasons and much evidence to make us believe that selective schooling, which allows the brightest kids from across social backgrounds to learn and develop together, has created huge benefits.

There are educational benefits. Stimulated by their peers, bright children can do much better. They can be stretched by high expectations in an environment with others who also want to learn. However, perhaps more important are the social benefits of bringing together children from different social backgrounds and raising the aspirations and confidence of those from less privileged backgrounds as they mix with others from more privileged backgrounds. I will share one fact. We often refer to the measure of value added. In 2005, grammar schools accounted for the vast majority—86 out of 100—of the top schools in the country when success at improving performance between 11 and 14 was measured. They are not just taking in bright kids and processing them; they are adding huge value by helping kids from all backgrounds to perform better.

It is a scandal that inequalities have widened and social mobility has declined over the past 40 years as a result of taking away the ladder of opportunity. Fewer people from state schools, as opposed to independent schools, are getting into the top universities and professions. Of the top 500 schools ranked on GCSE and A-level results, only 150 are non-fee paying. Of those 150, 127 are selective. Do we really believe that children from families who can afford to pay for private education are inherently brighter than those from middle-class and working-class backgrounds whose parents have to rely on the state system? The answer must be no. We are systematically failing the brightest kids from poorer backgrounds by denying them the ladders that would get them into the best universities and professions.

What do we do about this? The response should not be to tear down the excellent schools in a fit of jealousy, or to force top universities to lower their standards in order to engineer social outcomes. Instead, we should reverse the antipathy towards selection that we have had for too long, and recognise it as the friend and not the enemy of a more equal and meritocratic society, where what you achieve reflects your ability and aptitude rather than the wealth of your parents. I make it clear that I am not advocating a wholesale return to a compulsory 11-plus. I would like to see free state schools, including academically stretching schools, open to all children based on their ability and aptitude, if their parents wish to apply. Those schools should take from the widest practicable catchment area, so that they give all kids in the area the chance to participate and have the opportunities regardless of where they live.

I will pick up on some points made by my noble friend Lord Baker. School entry should not be fixed at any one age. Schools should take children at different ages, recognising different development rates. Most importantly, they should take children from all social backgrounds. How they select them, I leave up to them. The most critical thing is that the selection criteria should be based on the potential for high achievement, not on current exam results. Our aspiration should be to have the highest quality education available to those with the highest ability and aptitude, regardless of their social background. These schools should be a destination of choice for bright children regardless of their parental background—as grammar schools were, and in many places still are. Only when we have schools that are destinations of choice for everyone will the brightest children all come together to learn and create the social mix that is so important to the future leadership of the country. We must stop our antipathy towards selection and recognise that it has a much greater place than we have recognised in a fair and equal society.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, I support my noble friend Lady Royall. I state my very clear position that I am not in favour of any expansion of selection by the front or the back door—the back door route enables the expansion of admissions by existing selective schools that may become academies. I was therefore fairly disappointed in myself when I saw the Minister’s letter to my noble friend Lady Morgan of Drefelin, in which he says that the previous Government allowed selective maintained schools to expand by up to 25 per cent without publishing statutory proposals. Given that my fingerprints are all over the admissions code and the primary legislation that brought that into place—the Education and Inspections Act 2006—I was surprised that I might have let that one through. However, I pay tribute to the Minister’s officials for finding him that get-out. They continue to do a fabulous job for their Minister.

However, I have one or two questions to ask him. I have looked at the latest version of the 2010 admissions code. Paragraph 1.15 makes it clear that:

“Admissions arrangements for Academies are … part of an Academy’s Funding Agreement”.

The model agreement, to which we have referred, makes very little mention of admissions. Paragraph 12 makes some mention but the main section is paragraph 17, which says that the academy will be an all-ability, inclusive school. Clearly, we need a variant of this model agreement to show how it would apply to selective schools that then become academies. I would be most grateful if the Minister could assure us that that is being drafted and that we can have sight of it as legislation goes through Parliament. If we cannot see it in this House, perhaps the other place can see it before it debates it.

My second question concerns the admission number for schools. Paragraph 1.16 of the code refers to the importance of the admission number. Paragraph 1.17 says:

“Admission authorities of maintained schools must set admission numbers with regard to the capacity assessment for the school”.

That is set according to the physical constraints of the school. Will academies be bound by the same capacity assessment? That is particularly relevant when we get to the section of the admissions code to which the Minister referred in his letter that I mentioned earlier. In paragraph 1.20, the,

“statutory proposals are still required for schools proposing an enlargement to their premises which would increase the physical capacity of the school by more than 30 pupils and either by 25 per cent or by 200 pupils”.

My next question concerns the presumption of approval. Paragraph 1.22 of the code states:

“Local authorities and the Schools Adjudicator, when making decisions over setting admission numbers or admitting above them, should have regard to the presumption that proposals to expand successful and popular schools, except grammar schools, should be approved”.

Does that clause “except grammar schools” read the way that I intended when I approved it: that for grammar schools, the presumption would be that you would not approve the expansion? This area needs clarity. These amendments add clarity by saying that we should not have any new selection by any means. I know that is what the Minister’s right honourable friend Michael Gove said before he became Secretary of State. I have not paid sufficient attention to know whether he has repeated it since he took up that office.

Finally, I should be grateful if the Minister could say whether he has thought about using the schools adjudicator, as a truly independent person, to resolve these things after proper consultation, because the volume of new academies may swamp the Secretary of State when making the judgments that are required of him, as the law currently stands.

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, briefly, I ask the Minister to consider Amendment 10A in the name of my noble friend Lord Lucas. The whole purpose of academies is to enable good schools to become even better schools. The benefit of good schools in an area is that they ought to be able to provide such opportunities for as many children as possible.

One of the problems of the current admission system is that it ends up, in practice, turning into selection by house price. In other words, the good schools that become better schools tend to be in areas where parents move in and house prices rise. In that situation, poor schools and their pupils who live in neighbouring areas do not have the choice of getting the benefit of being able to apply to the better school next door. Indeed, schools in poorer and often disadvantaged areas have no incentive to improve. They do not have any competition, because they have in effect a monopoly of access in the local catchment area. There is a wholly beneficial argument for saying that if we allow good schools to develop by becoming academies, it would be socially desirable to allow all children from within a feasible area around that school who chose to apply to gain the benefit of being able to go to that school, rather than only the children of parents who happened to be able to afford to live nearby. It is wholly in favour of social mobility to widen admission as far as possible.

I would go further, as I argued at Second Reading. Contrary to the noble Lord, Lord Knight, I believe that there should be a place for selective education in the state system. That, too, would help social mobility. I accept that that is not the spirit of the Bill or the policy of the Government, and unfortunately there is nothing in the Bill that would allow that to happen. Therefore, I certainly would not support the amendments that try to go further in restricting admissions freedom, although Amendment 10A merits consideration.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, these selection issues are important, and I know how important it is that I provide as much reassurance as I can. I know that when I met the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and Members on the opposition Front Bench, he was very clear, and I obviously understood, that selection is a touchstone issue that is extremely important to the party opposite. I hope that he will also accept by the same token that that is extremely important to Peers in the coalition Government. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, said, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State has made it very clear that he is not interested in fighting old battles and reopening the question of selection, which I know will disappoint my noble friend Lord Blackwell. I hope, therefore, that I can provide some of the reassurance that noble Lords opposite and on these Benches have been asking for.

In part, one of the issues underlying all this, and which we touched on in the first group of amendments, relates to the reassurances provided through the funding agreement. That remains the case. Amendments 8 and 10C would require academy arrangements to include terms that provided that academies be treated as maintained schools for the purposes of their admissions policy under the schools admissions code. As I previously confirmed and my noble friend Lady Walmsley made clear, academies must comply—as is the case with maintained schools—with admissions law and the codes, and that is achieved through the funding agreement. I confirm that all future academy arrangements will contain this requirement. This is not, as some may fear, a voluntary requirement but a contract that is enforceable by the Secretary of State. The approach is consistent with that taken by the previous Government, who never sought to require in legislation academies' compliance with the admissions code. We do not see any reason to change that.

I will respond to one question from the noble Lord, Lord Knight. There may be other points on which I will have to speak to those excellent officials to whom he referred, and write to him. The detailed admission arrangements are in the annexe to the funding agreement that was shared with noble Lords earlier, perhaps before the noble Lord joined the House—I am not referring to the one that we shared yesterday. The model funding agreement published yesterday makes it clear that academies will continue to be bound by the same arrangements.

Amendment 10A, tabled by my noble friend Lord Lucas, seeks to remove the requirement that an academy should provide the majority of places for pupils who are wholly or mainly drawn from the area in which it is situated. We discussed this in response to amendments moved by the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, who was particularly concerned about boarding schools and those with a particular specialism. The words “wholly or mainly” require that more than 50 per cent of the pupils of an academy are drawn from the area in which the school is situated. My noble friend Lord Lucas asked why one should not simply do away with this. We believe that the requirement that an academy is a local school is important, as we want to ensure that local children have access to good quality schools. I think that point is welcomed by Peers on all sides of the House.

The phrase,

“the area in which the school is situated”,

like many such phrases, must be set in context. In practice, it depends on the nature of the school. If the academy is a boarding academy, or an academy with a particular specialism, the area could be very much wider than that which would be applicable in the case of an academy without special features. That is how it has worked in practice. We discussed this in Committee in the context of boarding schools and schools with a particular specialism. Following that debate, I pursued the point with officials, because I wanted to make sure that that was the understanding. The definition has not proved to be a problem in practice. I am very happy to write further to my noble friend Lord Lucas to follow up on his specific points.

Amendment 17B seeks to include provisions in academy arrangements to ensure compliance with academy characteristics, while Amendment 33A seeks to achieve similar aims by allowing selective schools to continue to select by ability. As I said in Committee, the Bill requires that the academy arrangements will oblige the academy proprietor to comply with the Clause 1(6) characteristics when establishing and running an academy. The Secretary of State ensures at the outset of an academy project that the academy meets those characteristics. Thereafter, compliance with them, and with all aspects of the funding agreement, is monitored by the Young People's Learning Agency. If anyone has concerns that an academy is not complying with the required statutory characteristics or the term of its arrangements, this can be brought to the attention of the YPLA or the Secretary of State, who will look into it and take appropriate action.

Amendment 32A, in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, seeks to prescribe in legislation a requirement that would prevent a selective school from increasing admission numbers once it becomes an academy. The Bill contains provisions that allow selective maintained schools to retain academic selection if they become academies; but, as we have discussed and as I am happy again to put on the record, it does not allow for new selection.

One point that perhaps has not been made before is that any independent school seeking to become an academy, which people may worry is a possible back-door route, would have to cease to be selective. As the noble Lord, Lord Knight, pointed out, under current legislation, the Education and Inspections Act 2006, any maintained school, including a selective school, may increase its admission number as part of any changes to its admission arrangements, subject to consultation. We propose no change to this in the Bill; in fact, we seek to maintain the status quo. The amendment would reduce the right to expand for one set of schools. It seems wrong to bar one set of successful schools from responding to demand for more places when that opportunity is currently open to them in the maintained sector.

Finally, I turn to the issue of faith schools raised by Amendment 32B, and I shall speak in support of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln. We had a keen debate about faith schools in Committee. As is rather the case with selection generally, the aims of the Bill in relation to faith schools are very modest, and the right reverend Prelate made the point well and fairly. We are simply asking to maintain the status quo, which I think is the point that he made. Nothing in the Bill will make an increase in faith schools easier, nor is there anything that seeks to change their character, but we believe that a faith school should have the same chance to become an academy as any other maintained school. We are not convinced that it would be right for faith schools seeking to convert to academy status to have to go through an additional application process simply to stay as they are. We think that designated faith schools are a key element of a diverse school system, and that they provide parents with an important choice.

We know from experience that academy arrangements involve a sufficiently robust safeguard. Earlier, we heard about a Trojan horse. In reply to the right reverend Prelate, it did not work out very well for the Trojans, or indeed for most of the Greeks. There is no back door to selection in the Bill. Having gone into this matter carefully and listened to the points made from the Benches opposite as well as from this side of the House, I believe that that back door is locked, bolted and padlocked. I hope that that reassures the noble Lords who have spoken and, in the light of that, I ask the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Blackwell Excerpts

Monday 7th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Blackwell]

My Lords, first, I should draw attention to my interests as chairman of a company involved in construction and maintenance of schools under Building Schools for the Future and the academies programme.

I join others in welcoming my noble friend Lord Hill to the Dispatch Box and congratulating him on introducing the Bill. It may not be revolutionary, but I think that it will be seen as something of a landmark, because the core idea of decentralising from Whitehall to the head teacher and the governors is long overdue. Like the former Prime Minister in 2005, I look forward to the time when all state schools are independent, state-funded schools, able to operate under their own aegis.

The truth is, however, that during the past decade, despite the continued development of academies, the overall thrust of education policy has been huge centralisation—what the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, called the bureaucratic model. In truth, local authorities no longer run or manage maintained schools. They have long since lost that power. Maintained schools are de facto controlled from the centre through targets, plans, the imposition of ideologies and the curriculum, much of which I fear has not been advantageous to schools and much of which, such as the removal of the need for a language qualification at GCSE and the move toward single sciences, has been to the detriment of the quality of education in this country.

It is time that we moved away from the bureaucratic model to embrace fully the idea that the best people to run schools are head teachers. As my noble friend Lord Baker said, there are huge benefits from giving freedoms to schools to deliver what parents want, and the innovation of which my noble friend Lord Lucas spoke. As others have said, that includes full control over their budget, more control over the curriculum and teaching staff and, most importantly, the quality and ethos that is so important to the way in which schools are run and pupils perform.

As others have said, we know what makes the difference between a good and a bad school. It is primarily about the quality of the head teacher—their leadership and their freedom to run the school in the way that they think best to motivate their staff and inspire their children. My complaint is not that we are going too fast; it is that it has taken more than 20 years to get here from the first conception of academies.

With decentralisation, of course there needs to be proper governance and accountability but, to my mind, the best accountability is to parents via choice and competition. That is what we must focus on as we go through the Bill.

Rather than repeating those arguments, let me deal with some of the concerns that I have heard raised in this debate, on which I would like to put my slant. First, the concern has been raised that competition benefits only middle-class or pushy parents. The reality is that it is the forces of competition which raise standards for everyone. That is why markets work. If it is not too superficial, it may be helpful to make the comparison with supermarkets. When supermarkets compete, it is the active shoppers, the people who shop around, who ensure that all shoppers benefit from competitive prices and qualities. Although schools may be very different from supermarkets, they will work in the same way in terms of the active parents—the active shoppers—driving up standards through competition which benefit all children in the area. As others have referred to, the good schools then become beacons of excellence which other schools have to emulate to maintain their standing and attract pupils.

As others have, I wonder about Clause 6, which appears to restrict schools to recruit mainly from the area in which they are based. Competition will clearly work best if parents have the widest possible choice of schools and that schools doing well can draw in from surrounding areas and expand, while those schools not competing as well and not offering what parents want are exposed. We do not want poor schools left to exploit a local monopoly without parents having the choice of taking their children to a better academy down the road, where the head teacher has managed to raise standards and deliver better results.

The other requirement of competition is that when schools fail, they are taken over and different management is put in place. I am encouraged by the Minister's comments that the programme will continue to address poor as well as successful schools, but if an academy does not perform—no doubt, over time, some academies will not perform—will the same triggers operate in terms of requiring a change in the management of a failing academy as a failing maintained school?

The second concern that I have heard raised is that academies will not benefit disadvantaged areas, but we have heard many contributions—notably from the noble Lord, Lord Harris, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lincoln and even the noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin—pointing out how successful academies have been in raising standards in underperforming areas. We should all take the point of view that we will not accept that schools in poor areas have to have low standards. There are many examples that show how schools with the right leadership can achieve outstanding results in even some of the most deprived areas, so academies are not just for the leafy suburbs but are for disadvantaged areas as well. I welcome the Minister’s assurance that those schools will still be part of the programme, and I also welcome the pupil premium, which is the additional answer to those who fear that those schools will be left behind.

The third concern is that allowing successful schools to convert to academies will open up a two-tier system, apparently because there is a fear that those schools will then get better. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan of Drefelin, was particularly concerned about this. I do not quite understand why it is such a terrible outcome if good schools get even better. We should not seek equality in education by holding good schools back. We want every school to be the best it can be and then to challenge every other school to match the best.

I would like government policy to go even further in due course in restoring the pursuit and celebration of excellence in education. In particular, we should ensure that the brightest children from whatever background have equal access to the best education based on ability and merit. One of the saddest outcomes of the past quarter-century is that social mobility has declined. We have reduced the opportunity for the brightest children from modest backgrounds to reach the top in their chosen field. We talk about special needs, but the one group that is often not considered in special needs is that of the few per cent of children who are very able, who often benefit from the standards and motivation of a high-performing peer group. Those from the poorest backgrounds often benefit most from moving into an environment that stretches their aspirations. Those children now too often face being trapped in poor local schools. This is important not just because of the tragedy for those bright children if they are not able to achieve their potential, but because we also need to recognise that as a country, we rely heavily on the top performers in every field to be our future leaders, whether in arts, science or business. It is a poor deal for the country, as well as for the individual, to waste that talent.

The solution to this problem of poor achievement by the brightest children and the loss of social mobility is not to legislate to force top universities and professions to lower their entry standards. Instead, we need to give the most able children the chance to achieve and compete on merit. The only fair way to do that is to include in the school system the choice for those who want it to apply to a highly academic school where entry is on ability and merit, not on ability to pay. That is the sort of school—direct grant schools, for example—that many of us here, in truth, benefited from but, sadly, have allowed to decline over the past quarter-century. I should be clear that I am not suggesting a mass return to forced selection. Most schools should remain mixed-ability entry, and that is clearly the objective of the Bill, but we foster excellence in football and we celebrate excellence in music and arts, yet somehow we deny the pursuit of excellence for the talented group in academic schools. The state system should provide for those children rather than only independent schools for fee-paying pupils being able to provide that kind of quality academic education. I welcome the fact that at least existing selective schools are protected in the Bill. The Minister will be relieved that I will not press for the Bill to go further, but it is something that the Government will need to come back to on another day. In the mean time, I welcome the Bill and look forward to supporting its passage through the House.