Education Bill

Debate between Lord Moynihan and Baroness Howarth of Breckland

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, perhaps I may help the noble Baroness, which would be unusual from my position to hers. The Minister sent me a most useful document, Customer Voice Research: Behaviour and Discipline Powers in Schools, for which I thank him very much. It is extremely helpful to me in my arguments, I fear, in several places. As regards powers of discipline, a teacher commented that she was completely,

“unaware … of the ‘main powers’ available to teachers”.

Teachers say, for example, that the powers sound “really antiquated”. They have said, “I don’t understand it”, and,

“I don’t feel confident that the Head would back me up”,

if I was to do this. It seems to me that this is about knowledge, culture and leadership, and not about legislation. We should not be legislating for executive powers; we should be legislating for strategic options, the things which I have just mentioned.

[Lord Moynihan]

My Lords, my friend in sport, my noble friend Lady Massey, will not be surprised to see me rise to address the subject of sport in the context of Amendment 74, particularly in respect of a brief but important issue.

In subsection (2) of the proposed new clause to be inserted by Amendment 74, my noble friend uses the phrase “for teaching physical skills”. As he knows, and as I am sure the Committee knows, physical skills cover cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, co-ordination, agility, speed, balance and—from memory—accuracy. However, I think that my noble friend is focusing on sport and recreation in schools. Sport requires participants to compete in physical activities and we should also cover recreation.

Standardising the language in legislation is extremely important. I hope that if my noble friend withdraws his amendment and brings it back later, he will focus on ensuring that, in this and in all contexts, we are talking about sport and recreation in schools. It is very important that recreation should be included to encourage dance, for example, among young people in schools, and not just competitive sport and the traditional sports. In that context, I simply offer that brief observation to my noble friend, who I hope will consider it when he is considering his reaction to the Government’s reply.