Education: Personal, Social and Health Education

Lord Eden of Winton Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2013 Grand Committee

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, effective personal, social and health education can be achieved only through an active partnership between teachers, parents and government. It is primarily for that reason, given that PSHE embraces all people who might have any interest in or concern with education, that it cannot be defined in statutory terms. It is part of the life of a school, and any headmaster or headmistress worth their salt is going to ensure that PSHE is part of the education of those children. They cannot operate the school effectively without it. It has to be there.

None the less, a substantial framework has been set out by the Department for Education, which elaborates in enormous detail the sort of teaching that could be provided under this heading for children aged between five and seven. It is very comprehensive but we have to be careful about how much we try to push into a child at an early age. We must guard against force-feeding children with adult knowledge and information. They can acquire it best in their own time and in their own development. Of course it needs stimulus and encouragement but it should not be thrust down their throats.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said, it is in the earliest years that the habit of learning can best be acquired. It is then, when the mind is at its freshest and its capacity to absorb knowledge is at its greatest, that attitudes for future conduct can best be shaped. This was well underlined in a report sent out by the Children’s Society. Its leaflet states:

“Childhood is the time of our most rapid learning, of absorbing extraordinary amounts of new information and acquiring new skills and interests. The pleasure, sense of self and personal growth that children find in learning and discovery is something that is essential for each and every child’s emotional well-being”.

However, we need to be alert to the fact that children are these days subject to the most enormous pressures and hideous influences. Noble Lords may well have seen an interesting article in the New Statesman recently—an essay by Rafael Behr, headed “Generation X-rated”, and with the sub-heading:

“Never has it been so easy for young children to watch violent pornography”.

Claire Perry, the honourable Member for Devizes, who advises the Prime Minister on childhood and internet safety, told Rafael Behr:

“Some parents are in digital oblivion. They have no idea what their children are doing with computers and phones”.

I read another article recently by Barbara McMahon in the Times on 26 March, in which she said:

“Research suggests that children of preschool age are spending increasing time with their faces a few inches away from screens instead of entertaining themselves with traditional toys or reading books”.

Lisa Guernsey, author of Screen Time, was quoted as saying:

“The greatest touch screen in the world of a child is an adult face”.

This is not alarmist talk. It is happening in the real world and children have what has been referred to as an electronic bedsit that parents are often not allowed to enter. We have to guard ourselves against these things and be alert to what is going on in the real world. That requires participation in all elements of children’s education.

Schools: Children in Care

Lord Eden of Winton Excerpts

Wednesday 18th July 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I agree with the noble Baroness’s basic point—that the contribution that independent or maintained boarding schools are likely to make will, proportionately, be a relatively modest one; and that, therefore, the Government’s reforms to try to improve educational performance will play an important part. It is the case that looked-after children, obviously, have priority for admissions, and that includes admission to the kinds of schools the noble Baroness described. I hope that other initiatives that we are taking—such as bursary support after the age of 16, the pupil premium and so on—will help. However, the key challenge for us in all schools is to raise those standards, bearing in mind that we need to focus on the particular group she described and shine a spotlight on their educational achievement and the gaps that there are.

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, on a more general point, does my noble friend agree that there are considerable educational advantages and benefits that come from the closest possible working relationship between the maintained and the independent sectors? To that end, will he do all that he can in discussions with interested parties on both sides and with teachers’ union to ensure that such developments flourish?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My noble friend makes an extremely good point. The more that we can encourage the independent and the maintained sectors to work together and learn from each other, the better it will be. I am certainly keen to do everything that I can to take that forward.

Education Bill

Lord Eden of Winton Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Ripon and Leeds]

My Lords, I speak with a certain degree of trepidation, not least because in one of the briefings that I received about tonight’s debate there was the suggestion that Bishops might like to keep their heads down on this amendment. I have no intention of doing that and while I have no responsibility for the Christian Institute, I want to apologise for any errors or false accusations made in the name of Christianity. I also want to affirm, as clearly as I possibly can, the enormous contributions made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Massey and Lady Walmsley, to the interests of children in successive debates within this House. I am grateful for all that they have done in the cause of children here.

Perhaps I might ask the Government Front Bench whether they would affirm, in summarising, that nothing in Clause 40 or in the noble Baroness’s amendment could possibly alter the law so as to make sex education compulsory for anyone, whether that child is five or at any other age—and that if somebody were to desire that, it would involve new statutory provision and a quite separate procedure to that which we are involved with today.

That said, I welcome and have considerable sympathy for the propositions which the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, has put before us. I am particularly concerned with bullying. It seems to me that although it is inevitably very difficult to get any sort of figures in this area, bullying is not obviously decreasing within our schools. That is one reason why I was so enthusiastic a few moments ago to affirm the importance of social cohesion, and why I am grateful to the Government for the way in which they have continued to stress social cohesion—even if they are not prepared to have it in the Bill. Bullying can be extraordinarily insidious in the life of a school. I have been involved in enough instances and discussions, previously as a governor and with some responsibility for schools within my own patch, to know how dangerous bullying can be and what a need there is within schools, which on the whole do an excellent job in seeking to ensure that bullying does not happen. A number of times this afternoon, however, we have spoken of the way in which things can develop in a school, without anyone intending them to and sometimes without people noticing. I hope that the framework that has been referred to on a number of occasions makes it very clear that Ofsted inspectors need to be alert to the possibility that bullying is developing within a school.

I welcome the stress here on personal, social and health education. This is crucial to the development of young people, whether it is done formally, through PSHE classes, or through the whole ethos and being of the school, in the way that the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, described earlier. I, too, bring examples of PSHE being integral to the whole life of the school, so that through assembly, through behaviour in the playground and through the whole way in which staff, governors and students operate and relate to each other in the school, PSHE is continually invoked and spread among the members of the school.

I am pleased that the reference to PSHE in the amendment in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, stresses the need for it to be appropriate to the age and stage of development of pupils. The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, also made that point strongly. If we were to pass this amendment, that would be one way of indicating that we believe that it is part of the task of schools, therefore of Ofsted, to deal with inappropriate sex education literature in the case of young children. I sympathise with the view that we are getting an overprescriptive, long list for Ofsted through the amendments we are exploring. That may be so, but these four areas are crucial to the life of schools and I trust that, whether or not we go with this amendment, they will all be part of the work of Ofsted and, more importantly, of the work of all the schools in our country.

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, the speech by the noble Baroness in moving the amendment gave much reassurance to many in this place who may have been overwhelmed by some of the correspondence that we have been receiving. I am extremely sorry that both she and the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, have been subject to abuse on the grounds that they have been apparently promoting activities in schools, in the teaching of the classroom, which have no place there, or should not be there. The fact that we have been receiving so many letters is an indication of the widespread distress that has come about as a result of what has been said. Therefore, I hope that the Minister, in replying to the debate, will make certain matters very clear indeed. What needs to be made very straightforwardly clear is that there is no intention at all of forcing the teaching of sex education in primary schools for children of the age of five upwards. That would be very wrong indeed. Having seen some of the material that has been put about that is apparently available in schools, I can say that it is totally inappropriate for young children.

The trouble with teachers, or well wishers, trying to embrace a subject of such sensitivity is that they become too explicit and nothing is left to any imagination at all. Worse still, in some of the documentation that I have seen, children are actually encouraged to experiment and to find out what they might enjoy. That is insane. We really cannot tolerate that sort of thing and I hope that my noble friend will make it abundantly clear that this is something that he and his colleagues in Government equally will not tolerate. I have had many years of being able to observe children in school, having been the owner, a long time ago, of a private preparatory school, and I know that in some cases—very rarely—a child is very susceptible and vulnerable and open to all matters of persuasion and influence. However, the majority—I can say this with some certainty—are not.

Children, small children in particular, are extraordinarily resilient and they have a facility to bypass the sorts of issues and experiences that trouble older people. They can absorb them. They are, after all, at an early age, on a journey on a voyage of discovery. They are learning something new every day, they see things every day that are either exciting or alarming and they can overcome issues of distress and anxiety very quickly, on the whole. I generalise, I know; of course, there are exceptions. I very much hope, therefore, that we will not try to force feed sex education to children in our schools, because that would be totally wrong and I know from what has been said that neither the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, nor the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, have any intention of doing that. In fact, I find their amendment wholly unexceptional, albeit I do not think it is right to have it in the Bill. The inspectors, as has been said, should not have all this detailed material put in front of them; there are issues that need to be taken into account, but I do not think that it should be in legislation. However, I find their objective in stating these various points to be totally praiseworthy and I thank them very much for having brought these issues to the attention of this House.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to be clear—since I know that many noble Lords want to speak, since I do not want any hares, or anything else, to get running, and since we should debate this amendment on its merits, as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, said at the beginning—that the Government do not have any proposals to bring forward or change any legislation in the context of sex education. I hope that that will help to speed up our debate.

Education Bill

Lord Eden of Winton Excerpts

Tuesday 18th October 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I very much commend the objectives of the amendments of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne. I feel sure that my noble friend the Minister would also do so although I strongly suspect he would not accept that they should be put in the Bill. They express the Government’s intention in relation to helping and supporting parents. I am sure we all understand how important well informed, confident parents are to the upbringing of our children.

I agree with the noble Lord that we need a change of heart in this country. We need to accept that parenting can be learnt. I was in New Zealand during the summer and talked to the people who instituted its highly successful SKIP programme of parenting assistance, support and information. It is based on the premise that you can learn to be a better parent if you are well informed about how children develop, how their brains develop, what works and what does not, and what is good for the child and what is not. We can do that in two ways in this country. One is to start with PSHE in schools and work with young people to help them understand the seriousness of what they take on, as the noble Lord said, when they become parents. Later we can provide more assistance to parents.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, for his somewhat qualified warm words about my honourable friend Sarah Teather in another place. I would point out that she announced during the conference season this year that the Government will be providing more funding for parents who wish voluntarily to attend parenting classes. That is very much a step in the right direction.

[Lord Eden of Winton]

My Lords, I very much agree with what my noble friend Lady Walmsley has just said. I hesitate to disagree with the emphasis that the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, brought to bear in moving his amendment only because I, like I am sure every noble Lord in this House, recognise the great contribution he has made over many years to the welfare of children and to the cause of good parenting. I certainly do not wish to dissociate myself from the objective he has set.

However, where I differ from him is in suggesting that bringing matters in the form of statute and putting them in the Bill is the right way to proceed. I agree with my noble friend Lady Walmsley that good parenting can be taught and that the practice is urgently in need of wider observation. I cannot accept that by putting these words into the Bill we will in some way be striking a blow at unwanted pregnancies. There are other ways of dealing with that. Several thoughts are brought to mind in this particular amendment. They include the damaging impact of the constant replication on television of various human relationship activities, which I do not think accord to the highest standards of individual conduct. If we were able—and as a former Minister for Posts and Telecommunications, I have to accept that we are not—to bring a greater degree of responsibility to bear on those who regulate our television programmes for the content of what is relayed into homes, where it is often watched by those with vulnerable minds, we would probably do a very great service to our children.

There is, in my view, a strong feeling that on the whole parents fail to understand the need to communicate with the child, even when the child is very young—although I recognise that that is an awful generalisation. I have made my next point in this place before. How often does one see parents pushing their children in pushchairs with the child facing away from the parent? If the child faced the other way, the parent would have direct contact with them, be able to talk to them, communicate with them and have eye contact with them. The benefit would be enormous not just to the parent, but, more importantly, to the child. These are not tricks of the trade but important underlying principles that need to be adopted by parents. They do not need to be written into the statute but they need to be understood by parents. We need to educate parents in this regard. That starts in the school where children receive all kinds of messages relevant to parenting.

Like all of us, it is the desire of the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to control the number of unwanted pregnancies, and therefore we might address the whole subject of sex education in schools in this group of amendments. That may well come up later. However, the content of that material, and the fact that it is projected to our children in schools from the age of five, is appalling. That matter needs to be tackled sensibly. The real key to good parenting and preparing a child for school is for the parent’s attention to be focused constantly on the child. Parents need to look after their children, not relegate them to sitting in front of the television, thereby avoiding their responsibility and the daily need to attend to their children’s requirements. We need to ensure that this happens by some means or another. I do not quite know how it can be done, but perhaps through talking about it a great deal, through educational provision, through our churches and through every other means of communication, we can ensure that parents really understand the responsibilities involved in having a child, and that that responsibility starts from the very earliest moment of the child’s life when they need to communicate directly with them and draw them into the heart of a loving family. That is the way to prepare children for education and school life.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the amendments of my noble friend Lord Northbourne, which he seeks to insert at a rather appropriate place in the Bill just under the heading “Early Years Provision”. The amendments describe measures that the noble Lord thinks would be effective. I was not clear how the measures would stop unwanted children being born. Nevertheless, focusing rather more attention on things such as flexible working for both parents might allow a greater sharing of responsibilities. I am glad to say that that is the pattern today, whereby the country is using the talents of both sexes in producing well-balanced children for the future and making certain that we make the most of our intellectual and productive abilities when competing in an increasingly global world.