Education: Development of Excellence

Lord Harris of Peckham Excerpts

Thursday 18th October 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Harris of Peckham]

My Lords, I have some experience of the subject having run 13 academies last year and 19 this year. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for talking me into sponsoring CTCs 20 years ago; the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, for helping me to get eight failing schools through local authorities; and the noble Lord, Lord Hill, for giving us 10 schools in the past two years and six new schools for next September. We now have 19 schools, and we had 3,200 parents applying for our schools this year. Up until today, we have had 28,000 applicants for 3,200 places. In less than two years, four schools have gone from failing to outstanding; and of the last 10 schools, Ofsted reports have rated nine out of 10 as outstanding, including three at the new grades which were outstanding in every department. So we do know a bit about how to run schools.

We think that education is the most important thing in children’s lives. Some 73% of children in our schools are black, and 54% receive free meals. We do not pick out all the best children, we pick a mixture. We can change a school round very quickly. How do we do it? We do it by getting a good principal, who has the backing of all of us in the team, and good teachers. We also set standards for the teachers of what we expect. We expect all six of the schools that we took over last month to be outstanding within three years. That is the target that we set for all our schools. We like not only results but motivation and sport, which our schools support strongly.

Let me give some figures. Our exam results for maths and English over the past three years have gone up from 31% to 71%—a massive improvement—and the percentage of those achieving five A to C grades has increased from 49% to 96%. In our Croydon academy of 400 sixth-formers—the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, agreed that we could put five schools together—90% got qualifications enabling them to go to university and 85% did go to university. However, the problem we have—the problem that all Governments have—is getting local authorities to agree to failing schools being changed. Parents actually think that failing schools are good. A year later, parents still think they are good. To give an idea of this, we have a school in Beckenham—a classy area—which on average took in 50 children a year and had 50 come in from outside. The school had a total intake of 200 pupils. We have had this school for just one year. Last Thursday we had 2,000 parents there. Last year, instead of 100 children coming in, we took 200 from the local community. So we did not have children thrown in. It is fantastic that parents realise what makes a good education, and realise it quickly. What happened to that school? It went from 36% of pupils achieving five A to Cs in English and maths to 52%. These are the same children and we have changed them in less than two terms.

I know that we do not have much time but I would like to mention quickly that we also took over a school at Eltham Green where, five years ago, a lot of the children were murderers—some of the people involved in the Stephen Lawrence murder went to that school. We had the school for one year under contract from Greenwich council and it went from a 28% pass rate to a 73% pass rate in just one year. This year, our target for that school is 75%

I hope that we have another debate soon but I would like to finish by explaining to the House how we improve our schools and what we do. I would like to explain why I am thankful to the Government and the noble Lord, Lord Hill, for giving us the opportunity to become teaching colleges for teachers, which is very important, and also teaching colleges for heads and vice-principals of the future. One matter which is dear to my heart is that we are going to open within the next 12 months a school for 130 children who have been expelled—excluded children—not only to teach them English and maths but to teach them a trade.