Education: Academies

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 9th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

I return to the position of rural schools, which was raised by the noble Lord, Lord Storey. Do they not face considerable pressures at the moment and require additional support in dealing with them? Secondly, does my noble friend agree that a responsible Government must have the power to intervene where local authorities are clearly failing?

[Lord Nash]

I agree entirely with my noble friend that rural schools face certain pressures. We are absolutely determined that no school—particularly rural schools—will be left behind. Our national funding formula will, for the first time, provide many rural schools with more support than it has in the past. We are proposing both a lump sum and a sparsity factor for rural schools. As I said, we will have a fund of £10 million to help them explore the academisation. We will have people working with them and will do all we can to help them. We believe that rural schools working together may be able to afford, for instance, a language teacher, which on their own they would be unable to do. On my noble friend’s second point, we accept that where we have underperformance—wherever it is, whether in the local authority or elsewhere—we must have powers to intervene.

Schools: Academies

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd May 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I have seen that report. The issue is purely technical, based on different year-ends for schools and for the department, which will not be an issue this year because of methodology. I also saw the Audit Commission’s 2014 report, which found 200 cases of fraud in local authority-maintained schools in the previous year. Given that I walked into the Department for Education in 2010 to find a department completely financially out of control after 13 years of Labour government, I do not take lessons from the party opposite.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, there has been considerable concern about poorly performing primary schools. How many have been taken over by academy sponsors and with what results?

[Lord Nash]

There are 960 primary sponsored academies open as of April this year, many of which previously suffered from chronic underperformance. In 2015, the percentage of pupils in sponsored primary academies achieving the expected level in reading, writing and maths at the end of key stage 2 rose by four percentage points to 71%. Results in primary sponsored academies open for two years have improved on average by 10 percentage points since opening—more than double the improvement in local authority-maintained schools over the same period.

Education: Henley Review

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Lord makes a very good point. It is well documented that music helps not only the cultural development of pupils but in matters such as working together in teams when they work in orchestras and choirs. I shall take back the noble Lord’s point and make sure that it is looked at.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Does my noble friend agree that arts and music have long been at the centre of partnership schemes between independent and state schools, schemes which are now increasing in number as a result of the recent Schools Together website launch?

[Lord Nash]

I do. It is true that of the approximately 2,000 independent schools, nearly 800 of them are engaged in activities with state schools—of course, many of those which are not are very small. It is something which should be encouraged and we are doing everything we can to do so.

Schools: Food Nutrition Standards

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, the noble Baroness is quite right that we have paid an extra £33 million to small schools to enable them to engage in this programme. It was always intended as transitional funding to help schools put their service on a sustainable footing and we believe that that has been done.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, in view of the widespread desire to help our milk producers and of the nutritional benefits, has the time come to consider reintroducing compulsory milk in our schools, which helped to make so many of us healthy?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend reminds me that I must have drunk at least three or four pints of milk a day in those days. I will certainly take this back for consideration.

Education: Polish A-level

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 18th January 2016 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to preserve the A-level examination in Polish.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords—or Moi szlachetni Panowie—we remain committed to securing the future of the existing range of language qualifications, including the Polish A-level. We are therefore continuing to work closely with relevant organisations and others to explore how best to enable these qualifications to be offered in future years.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Polish is the second most spoken language in our country. Deep historic ties exist between Great Britain and Poland. Is not the number of candidates sitting A-level Polish increasing, not falling, as is sometimes alleged? Does my noble friend agree that the Conservative Party has given an unambiguous commitment to preserve the Polish A-level exam? Does he also agree that the highly respected Polish Educational Society has put forward effective solutions to the small number of practical difficulties—such as the need to recruit more senior examiners—that have been raised by the AQA and Ofqual?

[Lord Nash]

Not only are A-levels increasing, but the number of entrants over the last five years for GCSE Polish has gone up by 50%. I agree entirely with my noble friend’s sentiments. We have given a clear commitment. We are determined to ensure that these courses continue. They are very important to us as a trading nation and an outward-facing country, but as my noble friend says they are also particularly important for communities to enable their children to engage with their rich cultural history.

Education: Unregistered Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 14th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We are concerned about the point my noble friend makes and about isolated communities, which is an area that Louise Casey has been asked to look at to see how we can improve integration. We are very active in our whole-school approach to making sure that children are brought up to understand enough about the different religions and beliefs in this country that they can be prepared for life in modern Britain.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Will my noble friend ensure that independent schools that intend to become members of one of the independent schools associations do not have registration procedures that are unduly burdensome, while at the same time providing for the full inspection that is required?

[Lord Nash]

I assure my noble friend that we have no plans to change the regime for full-time education. We have been consulting on part-time education of more than six to eight hours a week.

Schools: Free Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

This is to bring free schools in line with all other new schools, which are inspected in their third year in the same way. Of course, free schools are monitored closely by education advisers in their early years and, as I already said, by the regional schools commissioners.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Is the free schools programme helping to improve social justice and boost social mobility in our most deprived areas?

[Lord Nash]

There is no question that that is the case. About half of free schools are in the most deprived areas in the country. In the last five rounds, 93% of them have been in areas where there was a forecast shortage of places and a large number of our top academy sponsors, who are particularly focused on underprivileged children, have entered the free school movement.

Childcare: Early-years Funding

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I can give the noble Lord the assurance that we will not be trying to exclude anyone who should qualify for this with any clever wording in the way that he might be suspicious of. We will provide more details in due course but we are aiming this particularly at parents who want to do a bit more work and find that the cost of childcare prevents that.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

How many families do the Government expect will benefit from their proposals?

Cadet Units in Schools

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 15th January 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

My Lords, this is indeed a most valuable debate, for which we are indebted to my noble friend Lord Lingfield. Sadly, my career in the school cadet force long ago was an utterly inglorious episode, all details of which must be suppressed.

I have nothing but praise for the Government’s plans—now well advanced—to enable more maintained schools to establish cadet units. A number of those schools already have them but, like the excellent state boarding schools, they are among the nation’s best kept secrets. Their ranks should be swelled, and now they will be.

The increase in the number of cadet units is surely to be welcomed on two grounds above all. First, it will confer benefits on many more youngsters, assisting the shaping of responsible character and the provision of otherwise unattainable opportunities. Secondly, it will assist the national interest. Our defence in the years ahead will rest on the Territorial Army to a much greater extent than in the recent past. The expansion of cadet units will help furnish the recruits that the TA will need.

I have just one principal objective in this short debate: to advocate greater collaboration between independent and maintained schools. I should add that I have long been associated with the independent sector of education. Collaboration is already flourishing in a number of places. The head of an independent school in York wrote recently that it has,

“pupils from a neighbouring state school training alongside our cadets every week”.

Another head teacher in Cheltenham described how a contingent formed recently in a nearby academy has been developed in partnership with his school’s CCF,

“using our experience and resources, and they are bringing some superb talents to the team”.

I am sure that the Minister will agree that such partnership ventures should be encouraged throughout the country.

Of course, not all independent schools have attained the highest standards throughout their histories. One school magazine reported on 3 May 1888:

“The majority think it monstrous if they are obliged to attend twenty drills in the summer term. The consequence is that whenever the corps makes its appearance the drilling is bad, the marching is slovenly, and it becomes the laughing stock of the school”.

The school in question was Harrow, and its cadet force was about to secure a new recruit: Winston Churchill. He swiftly transformed it, making it what would today be called a model of good practice. It was therefore so very appropriate that contingents of cadets were prominent at his state funeral 50 years ago this month. We can be sure that he would have been much in favour of the expansion of the number of cadet units which is now taking place. He always said that the opportunities available to the few in public schools should be extended throughout the nation.

Schools: Classics

Lord Lexden Excerpts

Thursday 27th November 2014 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Lexden]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to promote the teaching of classics in schools.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Nash) (Con)]

My Lords, we believe that classics can form a key part of a well rounded education or, to put it in words that I am sure my noble friend will understand, fundamentum disciplinae universae. We are providing £0.5 million to fund training for non-specialist teachers of classics in state secondary schools, led by Professor Pelling of Oxford University. From this September, maintained primary schools must teach a modern or ancient language to seven to 11 year-olds. In secondaries, achievement of an A to C grade in an ancient language GCSE counts towards the English baccalaureate.

[Lord Lexden (Con)]

Floreant literae humaniores. Is my noble friend absolutely confident that enough is being done to increase the number of classics teachers in response to the very welcome surge in interest in state schools? Does he agree that partnership in classics teaching between independent and state schools is already flourishing and that the right way to increase it is by voluntary agreement, supported and encouraged by government, and not by government compulsion, as the party opposite now proposes?

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, ITT places for classics are up 25% and we have increased the bursaryship for classics and modern foreign languages. I fully agree with my noble friend that the classics are a fruitful subject for partnership. I am sure that he will be pleased to hear that we announced a fortnight ago a number of independent/state school partnerships, including one for Latin involving Thomas’s Kensington in collaboration with three state primary schools, with a further three language partnerships. I wholeheartedly agree that such partnerships should grow from voluntary initiatives, such as these ISSP programmes, and not be forced by government.