Schools: Funding

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We set out in great detail in the White Paper our thinking behind multi-academy trusts. Where schools are delivering educational excellence people deserve to be rewarded accordingly.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, from the dubious areas of Yorkshire to the elevated areas of Lincolnshire, surely all schools can benefit from having parent governors. Can my noble friend be a little more encouraging than he was in his answer on that subject?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with my noble friend that all schools can benefit from that, but we are trying very hard to focus governance on skills, so that people must have the relevant skills. But they may represent all sorts of different groups, and parent governors have a great deal to contribute.

Education: Henley Review

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I have to take issue with the noble Baroness on this point. The percentage of pupils at state schools entered for at least one GCSE in the arts has actually gone up by 10% since 2011, while the numbers of pupils entered for GCSEs in art and design, music and the performing arts have all increased. Indeed, last year thousands more students took GCSEs in art and design.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that a great deal depends upon our cathedrals for the excellence of choral music in this country, and will he take this opportunity to acknowledge that? Also, can he say whether the Government have anything in mind to assist and encourage in this area?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend makes a good point, and of course we have the Cathedral Primary School in Bristol, a new free school which opened in 2013. I am very hopeful that we will see more of such free schools.

Creative Sector: Educational Provision

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd July 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I will go away and look at this further, but I repeat that the statistics are encouraging.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I endorse very strongly what my noble friend Lord Baker of Dorking said. Will the Minister agree that in the 21st century no country can really claim to call itself civilised unless every pupil leaves school with a knowledge of music, the arts, and the history of the country?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with my noble friend.

Schools: Foreign Languages

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 26th January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with the noble Baroness about the importance of the matter. More than 1,800 places for modern language teacher trainees are allocated for 2015-16, which is an increase of 4%. As I say, we have substantially increased the bursaries, which were brought in for language teachers by this Government.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, for how many of our secondary and primary school pupils is English a second language, and is the Minister confident that we have sufficiently able teachers of English to make sure that, when children leave primary schools and go on to secondary school, they are fluent in the English language?

[Lord Nash]

We are very focused on increasing the quality of literacy in this country. Our phonics programme is now acknowledged to have been a substantial success. We have focused the national curriculum, particularly in primary schools, much more on language skills.

Schools: Careers Advice

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is right—there is an inherent conflict in this. Schools have a clear responsibility to ensure that their pupils achieve and progress to positive destinations, whether that is university or another, high-calibre, vocational route. Our revised guidance clearly states that schools should act impartially and recognise that some students would be better suited to educational training beyond schools, and it makes it clear that schools should give other providers the opportunity to inform pupils about the offer. We believe that our new destination measures will also help considerably in that area.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, may I once again urge my noble friend to contact all secondary schools and encourage them to appoint a careers advisory panel drawn from local businessmen and professionals who really know about jobs and careers?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend has raised this before and I think it is an excellent idea. In fact all schools should have at least one person focused on the careers function. I know that a number of schools do this and we are considering encouraging more of them to do so.

Schools: Careers Guidance

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am sure that we are all very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp of Guildford, for introducing this debate and doing so in such a splendid manner. The whole point and purpose of education is to discover and exploit the talents of each and every child who goes to school and that can be successful if that child, on developing into an adult when he or she leaves school, finds a career that is sufficiently challenging and rewarding in every sense. One problem that has bedevilled education—and I speak as a former schoolmaster, a parent and a grandparent with four grandchildren at school at the moment—has been the lack of comprehensive careers guidance. Many schools implant the idea that, unless the pupil goes to university, somehow or other it is a failure. That is so wrong. What we need to have is a careers guidance system that says to every child that there is a place for you—you can give of your best and achieve of your best and make a real contribution. I quote George Herbert, who said:

“Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws,

Makes that and th’ action fine”.

Whatever is done, if it is done to a high and proper standard, can be intrinsically rewarding. So we have to get rid of the notion that those who do not go to university have somehow failed—and we have to emulate those in Germany, for whom being an engineer is as high a calling as anything else. As the noble Baroness referred to, why are there 87,000 vacancies in this country for engineers? It is because our young people have not been sufficiently motivated.

I am particularly involved with craft apprenticeships, and I chair the William Morris Craft Fellowship Trust. I believe that we ought to get into our schools and tell our young people about this, and demonstrate to them that a career in the crafts can be as richly rewarding as anything else. I live in the shadow of Lincoln Cathedral, one of the most glorious buildings in Europe. How could that cathedral survive from generation to generation without dedicated craftsmen and craftswomen? We need to get into our schools and explain to the children that there are exciting opportunities for them.

How do we do that? One thing which we can and should do is ensure that every school has a panel of careers advisers, drawn from the local community. This should consist of successful business men and women, professionals and those accomplished in the crafts and what would in a previous age be referred to as the manual skills. Our young people would then have the opportunity not only to hear from those who have succeeded, but also metaphorically to sit at their feet.

Properly constructed work placements should be part of the education of every child, with work experience during the last two or three years of education. I have a granddaughter who just had some work experience in Lincoln itself, in the archives and so on. Her horizons expanded, and she went back to her school in Edinburgh —she lives up in Scotland—feeling much more aware of opportunities than she was previously.

I want a proper panel in every school. Guidance is fine, and the guidance to which the noble Baroness referred is admirable, but we have to give the policy some teeth. I know that the Minister is reluctant to prescribe this and prescribe that, but we are talking about the future of our children and therefore we have to ensure that they all have breadth of opportunity and experience. I beg of my noble friend to toughen up on this guidance. He also knows that I am a great believer in the importance of citizenship studies, and the two go side by side. As he knows, I would like to see every child coming out of school having undergone some form of citizenship ceremony, aware of his or her responsibilities and rights in the context of the wider world. That can come about only if these young people have an opportunity—and, indeed, an obligation —to do not only community service, but also properly constructed work placements.

We have to bring to this a sense of urgency, so that those at school at the moment do not feel that they are failures if they do not get three A* grades. They must not feel that they are failures if they do not go to university, and should feel that they are successful if they are attracted to vocational training, which tends to be denigrated. My six minutes are up so I will finish on that point, but I urge this upon the Minister.

Education: Citizenship Studies

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 30th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cormack]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to increase the emphasis on citizenship studies in the school curriculum.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted to be able to say that this Government have retained citizenship education as part of the new national curriculum. From September this year it includes an improved programme of study for citizenship education at key stages 3 and 4. This new programme of study will equip young people with the skills and knowledge to explore a range of issues and help them to take their place in society as responsible citizens.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I am grateful for that reply. Can my noble friend assure me that citizenship will have a central place in the curriculum, particularly in the last two or three years before children leave school? Will he ensure that, whether it is busking or otherwise, they have the opportunity for community service during that period? Will he give further thought to the idea that I have put to him on many occasions that there should be a citizenship ceremony when pupils leave school so that they can acknowledge publicly their responsibilities as well as their rights?

[Lord Nash]

I absolutely agree with the noble Lord that citizenship is important and I know that he is a passionate supporter of it. Many schools have ceremonies for awards and the new citizenship programme of study requires active participation. I would certainly encourage schools to consider adopting the noble Lord’s idea if they do not already reward good citizenship. Certainly it will help them demonstrate that they are promoting British values. However, it is not this Government’s style to mandate such a thing. In addition, the Government’s National Citizen Service for 16 and 17 year-olds gives young people a chance to develop skills such as volunteering and social action projects. I was delighted to see that the IPPR report published at the weekend was so supportive of the National Citizen Service and that we seem to have achieved cross-party support for it.

Education: British Values

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 26th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend Lord Storey on obtaining this debate and thank him for what he has said. Last week I suggested to my noble friend the Minister that it would be a good idea, in the year of Magna Carta’s 800th anniversary, to have a charter of British values to which all schools should be invited to subscribe. What are those values? They are of course based on the rule of law, of which Magna Carta is itself the foundation: freedom of thought; freedom of belief; freedom of speech; mutual respect and tolerance. One could add to that. Above all, they should teach all young people that everyone has responsibilities as well as rights.

I am very glad that my noble friend Lord Storey talked about citizenship education. As my noble friend the Minister knows only too well, I have spoken about this for quite a long time and I have seen him about it on a number of occasions. I would like all our young people to go through a citizenship ceremony when they leave school, having performed some community service in their area, whether it be dealing with the old or the young, or working for the National Trust—the list is endless. I would like all our young people to leave school with a sense of being part of a community and having a sense of community obligation and belonging. I would like that to be signified in a ceremony they all go through. If the Minister says, as he has hinted to me in the past, that it is difficult to do that right across the country, at the very least we should encourage it and consider having pilot projects. I believe the inculcation of a sense of real belonging is something so many of our young people lack.

It has often been said that the real poor of the present century are those without hope. What we must seek to do is give them hope, and one of the best ways of giving hope is by providing a sense of having roots, of knowing where they belong and what they can do.

In the final seconds I have left in which to speak, let me also suggest something I raised last week but which my noble friend slightly dismissed. While one could not make it obligatory, I would encourage all schools to fly the flag. In Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland they should fly two flags, and in some of our counties—my own county of Lincolnshire has a flag—they should also fly that flag. The flag or flags should be outside the school as a symbol of pride and belonging, of being part of a thing greater than oneself; that is, part of the community of which one is a part.

Schools: Teachers

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Tuesday 24th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, is it not a fact that through successive years some of the most effective teachers in some of the highest-achieving schools have not had a technical teaching qualification? What teachers need is motivation, a love of their subject and an ability to transmit that to others—not just a piece of paper.

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend. Studies show that holding QTS is by no means the arbiter of a successful teacher, and we must remember of course that QTS training is extremely brief. A McKinsey study highlighted the importance of personal characteristics such as commitment, resilience, perseverance and motivation—and, of course, subject knowledge is very important. Reflecting my noble friend’s comments, Richard Cairns, headmaster of Brighton College, one of the most improved schools in the country, said:

“I strongly believe that teachers are born not made and I will actively seek out teachers from all walks of life who have the potential to inspire children”.

Schools: British Values

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Thursday 12th June 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Cormack]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to draw up a list of British values to which all schools will be asked to subscribe.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, independent schools, academies and free schools are required to encourage pupils to respect fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs. That provision was brought in by this Government. We plan to strengthen this requirement so that those schools will have to promote British values. Ofsted will also be asked to change the inspection framework to reflect that expectation so that maintained schools are also held to account on the same basis.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that encouraging and positive reply, for which I am sure we are all very grateful, but as we approach the 800th anniversary in 2015 of Magna Carta, which was the foundation of the rule of law in our country, should we not be considering drawing up a new British charter of responsibilities and rights which every school in the land should be asked to subscribe to? While we are thinking about these things, would it not also be a good idea to follow the example of our friends across the Atlantic and encourage schools to fly the flag?