Education Bill

Debate between Lord Elton and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Wednesday 14th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

It seems that we have two sets of legislation, one for academies and one for everyone else. Such duplication is probably the biggest cause of further legislation than anything else. We duplicate everything. In this case we have one set of legislation for academies and one for the community schools. If we go ahead with this, we shall follow the Government’s normal practice of duplicating legislation at the appropriate point. That seems to me an absolute waste of time, but that is another issue.

[Lord Elton]

I warmly endorse my noble friend’s idea. The measure could be extremely fruitful, particularly given the circumstances of Travellers, to whom reference has already been made, but for many others as well. However, it is likely to miss the trend of this Bill, unfortunately, as it is not sufficiently involved. Therefore, I hope that he will take the opportunity between now and Report to provide an order-making power for the provisions that may need to be made; for instance, for examinations, which students cannot undertake at a distance unless they are supervised at some central point, in a way that, for instance, the City & Guilds is accustomed to organising. I hope that the Minister will have an open mind on this and that the amendment that eventually emerges will facilitate the development of this measure before we reach Third Reading.

Education Bill

Debate between Lord Elton and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief comment and ask a question. I have some sympathy with the amendment. When I first saw it I thought that it was perhaps overprescriptive, but having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Low, I have sympathy with it. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill we have understandably heard a lot from the Government about not putting heavy regulatory burdens on schools. Given that that is the direction in which we are going, it is obvious that at some point in the system there should be a fair amount of regulation—otherwise the system collapses and no-one would know what is going on. My understanding from the teaching schools—of which I am a great supporter and I hope that they do very well—is that this is one of those areas where the Government have accepted that there will have to be a lot of monitoring and a fair amount of regulation. You can see that by looking at the criteria for a teaching school. For instance, a head has to have been in post for three years—a matter with which I have always quibbled in my mind. However, I am not going to quibble with it because I accept that this is one of those bits of the education system that the Government really will have to keep their eyes on.

I can therefore see the argument, given that one of the great weaknesses in our education system is the quality of training for SEN that teachers get, that there is never enough time in initial teacher training to do that adequately. It is not properly covered in the induction year—it did not happen when I was in power and there has not been much improvement since. There is a genuine problem and I am persuaded by what the noble Lord says—these are the areas where these institutions need to be properly regulated. Losing this opportunity, which we should seize to raise the standards of teaching those with special needs, would be again to commit the mistake that we have all committed through the years, which is to pass legislation and then in future years see how we can tag SEN on to it. That has been a huge fault of government for decades. We put something in place and a few months later think, “Ah, how can we make this relate to SEN?”.

My question is this—how many schools designated teaching schools have not been awarded an “outstanding” category by Ofsted? What is that overlap, and how many schools not in that category have applied to become teaching schools? Perhaps the Minister can provide a little analysis of the comparison between schools which have been awarded the “outstanding” category as a result of inspections and those that are “outstanding” in SEN.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, regarding the legislation passed in the previous Session, which enabled and made necessary the identification of people suffering from dyslexia and that group of disabilities, it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us to what extent the number presenting themselves as suffering from these disabilities has increased. That would give us an idea of the workload.