Schools

Lord Howell of Guildford Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

As I have said, we believe it should be possible to design plans that would benefit the wider system. We are working with the Grammar School Heads Association on a test at 11 that will be much more difficult to coach and prepare for. The noble Baroness made an extremely good point on summer-born children. This is something we are looking at very closely. I have just taken over responsibility for admissions, and I am looking at this extremely closely. On early years, over the past few years, we have invested significant sums in widening access to childcare for parents, particularly the less advantaged. On the EBacc, our ambition is not that all children should take the EBacc; we fully understand that there will be some for whom it is not appropriate, but we see no reason why a target of 90% taking it, if not necessarily passing it, is not achievable. We are seeing that many schools that formerly had single figures for pupils taking EBacc are now achieving 70% or 80% of pupils studying these subjects quite happily.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is it not a bit silly and outdated nowadays to depict the academic educational route to a career as in some way superior to the route through high technology and technical skills? Is it not the case that you can find the path to achievement and high success through either route and that the old idea that one is failure and one is success belongs to a past century? Does the Minister also agree that if every child and their parents are to have the choice of going down the route that suits them best on the road to the top—the road to success—it demands not merely expanded grammar schools, which is good, but a comprehensive and complete pattern of very high-quality high-technology schools and vocational schools that will enable children with that inclination to achieve and succeed just as much as if they had been to a grammar school?

[Lord Nash]

I entirely agree with my noble friend’s point that the academic and the vocational routes should be equally valued. All pupils should have a basic grounding in academic subjects such as English, maths, science et cetera, but there is no doubt that we need to do more to improve vocational education in this country.