Relationship, Sex and Health Education
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(3 weeks, 3 days ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear first from my noble friend and then from the noble Baroness, Lady Fox.
Baroness Hazarika (Lab)
My Lords, as we have heard, we know that pornography is poisoning the minds of our young women and men. It is so important to teach men and women at a young age what healthy relationships look like, as they are often not seen at home. They are seeing the most violent, misogynistic and dangerous images. We know this hurts women, but it also hurts men who are drawn to people such as Andrew Tate. Will the Minister give us an assurance that the Government will make this education a priority?
Higher Education: Creative Courses
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will hear from my noble friend Lord Lemos first then we will come to the other Benches.
Lord Lemos (Lab)
My Lords, I hope my noble friend the Minister will agree that as well as the problems in higher education we also need to reverse the dramatic drop-off in students studying arts and humanities subjects at GCSE and A-level. There has been a more than 47% drop for those GCSEs since 2010. As she mentioned, we also need to strengthen the career pathways between education and employment in the creative industries. I fear that we are still living with the ancient and false binary between arts and science education; I hope my noble friend agrees that we need both.
Schools: Citizenship Education
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(1 month, 3 weeks ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches next.
Baroness Garden of Frognal (LD)
My Lords, we warmly support lowering the voting age to 16. To follow on from the second part of the question from the noble Baroness, Lady D’Souza, can the Minister say how the recruitment of citizenship teachers is going, because in past years it was very difficult to recruit them?
State Schools: Creative Education
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Conservative Benches.
Lord Vaizey of Didcot (Con)
My Lords, I declare my interest as a trustee of Tate. May I say to the Minister how reassuring it is to see an Education Minister addressing this Question? To make arts education as effective as possible, close working between the Department for Education and DCMS is essential. I am afraid that money involved. For example, visiting a theatre or museum costs schools money and many of these museums have to find money from their own budgets as well. Will the Minister meet with her counterpart in DCMS and look at a strategy in the round to engage our schoolchildren in meaningful visits to theatres and museums, with some financial support to help that?
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Liberal Democrat Benches next.
Lord Addington (LD)
I thank you for being allowed to speak. Will the Minister take on board that museums often tell you certain things about development, for example, and the importance of design and technology? Unless you can develop the mouse to work with the computer—something we can all use easily—it does not happen and does not become a mass tool. That information is best conveyed by showing it. Can the Minister make sure that this is an important part of the curriculum for those subjects?
Higher Education Sector
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(3 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Lib Dem Benches next, please.
Lord Addington (LD)
My Lords, I thank the Chief Whip. If we are going to make sure that the universities are accessible to our own students, can we have an indication of what level of support we are expecting to get from foreign students, and have that discussion out in the open quickly?
Curriculum and Assessment Review
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(4 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
We will hear from the Cross Benches, then the Conservative Benches.
Lord Berkeley of Knighton (CB)
My Lords, in addition to the subjects being considered, will the review look at the provision of the infrastructure behind them—for example, libraries for books and, for music, peripatetic teachers, instruments and music itself?
Early Years Provision: Bell Review
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)
My Lords, what is so encouraging is the way fathers are now involved in looking after children, and it is very important—
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will turn to the Cross Benches next, and then we will hear from the noble Lord.
Baroness Boycott (CB)
My Lords, we have just come to the end of a report on ultra-processed and HFSS foods. When it comes to early years nutrition, it is quite a Wild West out there. For a start, we have the lowest rate of breastfeeding in Europe and the OECD, because there is very little support. When you get on to infant feeding formula, a lot is marketed at babies who are younger than six months and there is extreme confusion about the way that milks can be advertised.
Childcare
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Baroness Barran (Con)
I thank my noble friend for his question. I too have seen those reports, although our understanding in the department is that the vast majority of providers behave extremely responsibly and provide places for children with special educational needs and disabilities. But, if my noble friend or anyone in the House has examples of where this is not the case, we would be very grateful to hear those. We are also increasing the rate of funding for the disability access fund, and the early years national funding formula contains an element that addresses the additional costs of working with children with special educational needs.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, in June last year, the Minister told the House that this investment
“will make sure that parents are able to access the high-quality, affordable childcare that they need”.—[Official Report, 29/6/23; col. 898.]
But can she now tell the House when the Government will start listening to the sector? It is raising concerns, not least that providers of this childcare are not getting their rates confirmed. The risk is that they will not get them confirmed until 31 March, and they are supposed to deliver the service on 1 April. That is a bit of a challenge. How will we address that?
Baroness Barran (Con)
The noble Lord raises an important point, and he will be aware that, at the end of November 2023, we published the local authority-level hourly funding rates. Of course, it is up to local authorities to parse that information and to decide the funding rates for their local providers. We are aware that some local authorities have not yet done that, and we are working closely with them and stressing to them exactly the points that the noble Lord made.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I addressed this in answer to the question from the noble Lord, Lord Kennedy. In November last year, we gave all local authorities their funding rates. It is for them then to communicate with local providers on what the specific rates and the range of rates will be in their area.
Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
To pursue that point a bit further, the noble Baroness said she had given the rates to the local authorities, but some local authorities have not moved on that. What are we doing to ensure that local authorities very quickly get the rates out so that organisations know what rates to charge and parents can have some certainty? It is 22 January now; we are talking about 1 April. There is a bit of urgency here.
Baroness Barran (Con)
I could not agree more, but I stress, again, that the vast majority of local authorities have informed their providers and we are working closely with the remaining ones to urge them to do so as quickly as possible.
Oak National Academy
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Vaizey of Didcot, for securing this Question for Short Debate. I do not normally speak on education matters so I was pleased to see so many experts with much more knowledge than me in the Room to take part in the debate. I expressed my concern to a colleague outside the Grand Committee. They replied, “I don’t know what you’re worried about; it’s never stopped you speaking before.”
Turning to Oak National Academy, it is clear from today’s debate that it is not without controversy. My noble friend Lord Knight of Weymouth was clear in his concerns that it could cause damage to the market, could cause huge difficulties and could have a detrimental effect. He set out a number of questions for the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, to answer; I am sure that she will address those when she responds to the debate. I would also appreciate it if she could set out what she envisages the relationship between Oak and Ofsted will be. If the former is setting the standard for what the modern curriculum and lesson planning should look like, will Ofsted be responsible for assessing its outputs?
The Institute for Government has called for proper evaluation and assurance of Oak since it has had only limited formal evaluation in the three years since its launch. Does the department intend to conduct an independent impact evaluation of Oak materials? Otherwise, how can stakeholders—teachers and the public —judge how well it is working, and how can we tackle issues that emerge? My noble friends Lady Morris of Yardley and Lady Blower made really important points about what teachers would want this money spent on if they were asked. They made it clear that it would not be what we have got here today. That is a fair point: what would the teachers want this money spent on? What do they need to make themselves more effective in the classroom?
Can the noble Baroness, Lady Barran, say something about the operational independence of Oak? That has certainly been a concern of many noble Lords in the course of this debate. I note that the chief executive of United Learning, Jon Coles, has pulled out of the initiative, citing concerns about its running and the direction of travel. The Minister may say something in her response about how Oak will remain optional. How can we ensure that it remains optional? If Jon Coles and others are pulling out, the risk, of course, is that other suppliers will be crowded out, choice will diminish and schools will end up effectively being forced to use Oak. Can the Minister tell the Grand Committee what the mechanism is to ensure that that does not happen and reassure noble Lords? I would also like to hear from the Minister about how any negative impact on publishers might be mitigated and how innovation might still be encouraged in education resources and the edtech space.
I recognise that Oak was a help to many during the lockdown and had a positive impact on teacher workloads. That was highly welcome. However, we also need the robust evaluation that I mentioned earlier. Given the potential impact on an important and valuable sector for our economy—edtech is worth £3.5 billion—I hope that the Government are exploring every option to assess Oak National Academy thoroughly and address any unintended consequences. I will leave it there.
School (Reform of Pupil Selection) Bill [HL]
Lord Kennedy of Southwark Excerpts(2 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Kennedy of Southwark (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, maybe I should declare that I went to St Thomas the Apostle, a Catholic boys’ school and comprehensive in Peckham. I thought that I got a very good education from that school; prior to that, I went to St Joseph’s in Camberwell, so I had two good Southwark schools.
I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Blower for securing this spot for her Private Member’s Bill, which has enabled its Second Reading today. She did far better than I have with my Private Member’s Bill. I am way down the list and do not think I will be getting anywhere near this level, but I will keep pressing the Government—you never know. In paying tribute to her, I also commend my noble friend for her work in the field of education over many years. I think we all recognise that and we are pleased to have her here with us, particularly on our Labour Benches.
It is fair to say that all noble Lords who participated in this debate care deeply about education. Ensuring we have the processes, procedures and framework in place so that every child gets the chance they deserve to have a first-rate education is what we all want to achieve. It is also fair to say that schools are struggling with an unprecedented array of issues. They are struggling with the Covid catch-up and all the other issues that we have to cope with, including energy prices, rising food prices and the mental health crisis among children. We talk about and grapple with all those issues every day.
Clearly, there is an uneven playing field in England today. A week ago, DfE data revealed that children on free school meals achieve education outcomes that are 20% lower than those who are not. In Richmond upon Thames, Wokingham or Surrey, 73% of pupils reach a good level of development; but if you grow up in Manchester, Middlesbrough or Luton, it is nearer 50%. Those figures should raise alarm bells for, and are a challenge to, all of us. For me, that is what levelling up is all about.
The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, gave the whole House some very important points to think about in her excellent speech. As I said, I went to school in Peckham and Camberwell, while the noble Baroness went to school in Rutland. But my housemaster was Michael Wilshaw—who I believe went on to other things. I had a fairly good education at the school I went to. I learned to play the bassoon there and played it in school orchestras. I also learned to love Shakespeare, theatre and stuff. The education I got in my comprehensive school was excellent.
Education to me is all about changing lives for the better, no matter where people live. Sadly, that has failed to be delivered in many cases. If we look at education policy over the last 12 years, for me it is one of failure, and that is most disappointing, and no more so than on levelling up. We hear so much about levelling up from the Government but we see no work at all on levelling up education.
Grammars certainly represent a minority of schools. The evidence does not support that grammar schools improve outcomes for children across the education system. My noble friend Lady Blower highlighted that in some of the figures that she gave to the House, so we support the existing ban on new grammar schools opening. My noble friend Lord Watson of Invergowrie is right that there is a debate about where we as an Opposition should go with our policy and where an incoming Government should be. I am unable, though, to offer support from the Front Bench for the Bill. There are big issues facing the education system around children’s recovery, the supply of teachers and ensuring that young people leave education with the skills they need to thrive and work throughout life. That is our priority, and it should be the Government’s too.
My noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath set out, in a very good speech, some of the huge challenges that we face in education today. My noble friend Lord Austin of Dudley made the point about literacy and numeracy. He is right on that; what we need to do is to offer an education to young people that actually equips them for the world of work—to get a job, provide for their family and then be an active participant in society. To me, those are the most important things.
The noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, also mentioned private schools. The Opposition certainly have policy on private schools. We intend to end the tax break for private schools and invest the money that raises in driving up standards for children across the piece, by delivering thousands of new teachers, professional career advisers for every school and work experience for pupils.
I conclude my remarks by again congratulating my noble friend on securing a Second Reading. I will look carefully as the Bill proceeds through the House.