Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Committee stage & Lords Hansard - Part 1
Monday 13th June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash (Con)]

I support my noble friend. I say to the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Blunkett, that if a teacher has been teaching in the private sector for 20 years and is well qualified in their subject—through university and through practising it for 20 years—are we really going to make them take a course for nine months, at the end of which there are no exams, so that they are qualified to teach? I think we need to be a little more flexible about this.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

Just to add to that, I think there are—or there used to be—ways for teachers moving from the independent sector to the state sector which were far less than nine months.

I take the point about a subject like IT. I absolutely agree with the amendment: teaching is a profession, and all the evidence internationally shows that the better qualified the teacher, the better the achievement for students. That is what this is all about. But if the problem is that, in a fast-moving world, there are a set of skills such as IT that people need to come into education to deliver, there needs to be another way of meeting that need and getting those people in rather than saying to the whole of the school system that teachers do not have to have a qualification. This is not being used to get people with specialist IT skills into schools to help children. It is being used by headteachers and schools where they cannot get staff with qualifications in front of children in classrooms, so they go for those without qualifications.

Although I share with the noble Lord, Lord Agnew, the wish to get the latest skills into the classroom without making people do a year-long PGCE, we just need a bit more creative thinking in order to make that happen. It cannot be that we go back to a profession that not only is not a graduate-level profession but is not a qualified profession at all. The message that gives is something that none of us who are committed to the education of children ought to support.

Schools Update

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 17th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

We have not considered that because we do not plan to do it. Were we to lean heavily on the independent sector, it would probably result in a much greater burden on the state sector, because there is no doubt that the country saves a huge amount of money on state education by the number of people who go to private schools. We have, however, made it absolutely clear that although the independent sector does a great deal to support state schools in terms of both bursaryships and school partnerships up and down the country—I was recently in York, where there is a strong school partnership—we think that some independent schools can do more. We are in active discussions with the Independent Schools Council and the other independent school organisations. They are very willing to help and we will be working with them so that they can help the state sector much more. There is a lot that they can do to help the state sector—particularly in teaching, the use of sports facilities and sports personnel and preparing pupils for applications to university.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, part of the problem is that it is such an unclear Statement. There are so many questions, but we are not getting particularly clear answers in response, so I return to two issues that have already been raised to seek further clarification. The wording of the Statement,

“deploying efficiency experts to give direct support to”

schools, reads to me like real people going to schools to give advice. In his response to my noble friend on the Front Bench, the Minister implied that it is an online tool. Can he clarify exactly what is meant by those words? If they are real people, how much will that initiative cost? I also return to the part of the Statement which talked about 30 of the 140 new schools coming through the local authority route. It would help me to know whether local authorities will be able to say that they do not want to spend their money in that way.

[Lord Nash]

We have done a great deal of work in the department on efficiency in schools. There is no doubt, despite what people say, that some schools have grown their budget a bit like Topsy. I see that the noble Baroness is nodding. Interestingly, our most successful education providers are also our most efficient financially, because, as any organisation has to when it faces financial pressures, they go back to a bottom-up approach to budgeting. Schools that do that spend their resources where they are needed and think about where they want to spend them rather than, as has happened in a number of schools, through consistent increases in funding over many years, where their budgets have grown like Topsy. There are significant efficiency savings. Many schools have grasped that, but there is no doubt that some have not, and we now have a number of experts—we currently work with about 20—who are well versed in this. We will be making them available to schools that need them.

We have no intention of forcing free schools down the throats of local authorities. It is a collaborative approach. We have been working collaboratively with local authorities on free schools and see much greater scope to do so in future.

Schools

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 12th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister will know from both his role and his close involvement in academies in London that London is the highest-performing region in our country and the best place to be poor if you want to go to a high-status university. Will the Minister explain what lessons the Government took from the success of London that led them to focus on more selective and grammar schools as a way of giving more opportunities to working-class children?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is absolutely right. London has been a great success story. It started under the Labour Government with the London Challenge and their academies programme, which we have sought to continue. Of course, there are quite a few schools in London that are selective in one way or another. It is also fair to say that it is much easier to attract teachers in London than in many of the areas of the country where we see these underperforming schools. Although there are many lessons to be learned from London, there are still many coastal towns and former mining villages in this country that seem to have struggled, partly because of intergenerational unemployment and partly because they struggle to attract really good teachers. It is those kinds of issues that we are really keen to focus on.

Education and Adoption Bill

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Tuesday 10th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Lord Nash]

The answer to the noble Lord’s question is that we are not saying that, obviously; but as we made clear ad nauseam the last time we were here, there have been 1,500 failing maintained schools converted to academies, many of them very recently, all of which have been performing badly, many of them for years, under local authority-maintained status.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

But it is also agreed that one in seven of the schools that converted from the maintained sector as excellent or outstanding stand-alone academies went on to require improvement or serious measures.

[Lord Nash]

We can bat around statistics on this for ever but, in fact, the converted academies are doing considerably better than local authority-maintained schools.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

If we are arguing about statistics, will the Minister accept that the one I gave was given in a reply from his department?

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is talking about Ofsted grades; I am talking about exam results.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, the group of amendments including Amendment 19 proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Storey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Pinnock, and Amendments 20 and 22 proposed by the noble Lords, Lord Watson and Lord Hunt, and the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, focus on the involvement of parents and others in decisions where schools are underperforming as well as in decisions about the conversion of schools which are performing well. I also hope to use this debate to reiterate why Clause 8 is so fundamental and should stand part of the Bill.

Why the new and strengthened intervention powers in the Bill apply only to local authority maintained schools and not to academies features again in Amendment 22. I hope that following our debates at the first Committee session and earlier today, many of which probed our approach to failing and coasting academies, noble Lords will be reassured that regional schools commissioners already take swift and effective action where an academy is not performing well.

The other main issue raised by Amendments 20 and 22 is the involvement of parents when a school is eligible for intervention and will either be required to become an academy by virtue of being a failing school, or may be subject to an academy order or other form of intervention where it is identified as coasting or has failed to comply with a warning notice. Looking first at schools which have failed and have been judged to be inadequate by Ofsted, as I have already said, we are clear in the Bill and in our manifesto that any failing school must become an academy with the support of a sponsor. It is illogical to retain consultation on whether a school should convert when our manifesto makes it so clear that that would be the outcome.

Clause 8 is also vitally important because we want transformation to take place from day one. As I said, the Bill will ensure that the academy conversion process for such schools will be as swift as possible, not delayed through debates about whether a school should become an academy or not. That is also why Clause 8 removes the requirement for consultation on whether a school should become an academy. Maura Regan, CEO of the Carmel Education Trust, a passionate woman who noble Lords heard from at last week’s event, summarises the case better than I can. She said that the difficulty with allowing a consultation or vote about whether a school should convert to academy status is that it is like asking turkeys to vote for Christmas. The adults’ perspective will largely always be skewed or biased. Moving swiftly to transform the school is about championing the interests of the child over and above many stakeholders not able or willing to grasp the long-term wider view. I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, who made similar comments last week in Committee and to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, who made similar comments in an earlier debate.

As I said at the outset, this is about putting children first. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, takes objection to the words “for too long the interests of adults have stood in the way of a child’s education in circumstances where a school is failing”, but sadly events prove that to be the case time and time again. I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Deben for his very eloquent remarks. It seems that we have a fundamentally different sense of urgency on this side of the Committee compared with noble Lords on the other side. I have great respect for the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, but it is as simple as that.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I cannot allow that to stand. I requested in the previous debate that we did not throw that kind of remark across. I hope that the Minister would wish to put on record that no one on this side does not have a sense of urgency. If the Minister is going to do nothing while a school is converted to an academy, then shame on him because other things can be done while a discussion, a meeting with parents, takes place. The school’s hands are not tied with regard to changing the head teacher, getting someone in to help, putting challenge in and doing other things rather than converting to an academy. He might end up disagreeing with us but I hope he will not rest on the argument that it is because we are prepared to sit on our backsides while children fail. That is not the case, and I think he knows that if he thinks about it carefully.

[Lord Nash]

I fully accept that on both sides of the House we want to put the interests of children first. Maybe we have a different approach to doing that. I have already described to the House that once a sponsor has been identified for a failing school, sponsors will be keen to engage with parents about their plans for the school, ensuring that parents understand what will happen next and have the opportunity to share their views on the sponsor’s approach. Widnes Academy is just such an example. The performance of the predecessor maintained school, West Bank Primary School, had declined and in May 2013 it was put into special measures by Ofsted. The Innovation Enterprise Academy, a high-performing local secondary academy, was named as the sponsor for the school, and its first action was to engage with parents, pupils and staff to seek their views about how the new academy should operate.

Birmingham Schools

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

I can absolutely give the noble Lord that assurance.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I am most grateful. There is no doubt that the report makes very uncomfortable reading for everyone. All parts of the education system need to look at how they have performed and ask real questions about what has gone on in recent years. Beyond the no-notice inspections by Ofsted, I find the report more shallow than I would have expected. On no-notice Ofsted inspections, I would be amazed if the wool could be drawn over Ofsted’s eyes just by giving 24 or 48 hours’ notice. I am not convinced at all that merely sending Ofsted in with no notice will enable it to spot these things if it could not spot them with 24 or 48 hours’ notice.

The point I want to raise that has not been raised is that, while excusing no individual in these schools or the local authority, or anyone anywhere from the consequences of their actions, has not the Minister reflected that, in a way, government policies over the past five years have made this situation more likely, not less likely to happen? What we read in the report is the downside to some of the Government’s flagship policies: inviting parents to play a greater part in deciding the values and type of education their children receive; destroying many of the partnerships that meant that what one school did was visible to another; massively reducing local oversight of schools; encouraging teachers, often with no qualifications, to make up their own curriculum as they go along; and excusing outstanding schools from any inspection at all. Without saying that there is nothing to be gained by those policies, the fact is that the Government have made no allowance at all for coping with the downside of some of their key flagship policies. What is the Minister going to do about that now?

[Lord Nash]

It is true that in recent years, Ofsted has strengthened its inspection regime by recruiting inspectors who speak Arabic and Urdu and are trained in the various Islamic ideologies, but we have today announced many other actions that we will be taking in relation to those schools. I do not accept that it is as a result of recent government actions that these things have happened. The noble Baroness may believe that these things have suddenly turned around; they have in fact taken root in these schools over many years, particularly under the previous Government, but it is this Government who have dealt with those points.

Children and Families Bill

Debate between Lord Nash and Baroness Morris of Yardley

Monday 14th October 2013 Grand Committee

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I support the amendments in this group—in particular my noble friend Lord Touhig’s amendment—but I very much support the point made by my noble friend Lady Massey about the need to evaluate. That is a theme throughout the considerations of this Committee. It is not that nobody has thought of doing the right thing but that we have not been good enough in implementation and monitoring, and in amending what we do in the light of the evidence. That is why that amendment is important and is one that we should pursue.

My comments will be in particular about the pupil premium. It is a brilliant little idea. I admit that when I first looked at the Bill and when we were discussing it at Second Reading, I could not be against the notion of the virtual school head but it did not quite ring right with me. I was not against it but I was just not sure that it would have any impact. Perhaps those local authorities that have voluntarily carried it out and feel they own it will make a success of it. My worry was that once you made it statutory throughout the nation, it would become just a job to be done and a box to be ticked. It needed some sort of bite beneath it that would give it teeth and make sure that something happened. I did not raise this at Second Reading because I could not think of anything at the time, but I think that the pupil premium might be one of those things that means that schools and other places in the education system have to sit up and listen because there is a control of resource in someone else’s hands. That might just give the edge to this post, new as it is, as it starts its contribution to education.

There are perhaps one or two other reasons. My noble friend Lord Touhig was right to say that the evidence at the moment is that some schools are not spending the money to greatest effect. Many are, and there are now lots of things that will help them spend the pupil premium to great effect, such as the toolkit. A lot of good work is being done by Ofsted and a lot of people. My worry is that this could be one of the cases where the group of people on whom it is spent least effectively are those children who are looked after. They seem to miss out on every bit of the system. This gives us a chance to make sure that in this we actually give them a head start.

I envisage that those people who are virtual heads could build up a body of expertise and experience about how best to spend the pupil premium. In that way, they could be champions of spending quite a significant amount of money. I am sure that teachers throughout schools in all local authorities might then look to them for advice. I trust that they will do it carefully. I would sooner the amendment said “in partnership with schools” because I do not think it will work unless it is in partnership with schools. Perhaps after consideration here, if it were to be brought back on Report, my noble friend Lord Touhig and others might wish to reflect on that. However, it is a really good addition to what is basically a good idea—the virtual school head. Until this amendment, they ran the risk of not having any teeth to do their work.

[Lord Nash]

My Lords, I am delighted by the cross-party support which Clause 9 has attracted. In spite of the modest progress in recent years in the attainment of looked-after children, progress is nowhere near what it needs to be. That is why we have decided to make the role of the virtual school head statutory, so that all local authorities are required to appoint a dedicated officer to discharge its duty to promote the educational achievement of the children it looks after.

Natasha Finlayson, of the Who Cares? Trust has said:

“Virtual school heads have been shown to have a positive effect on the attainment of young people in care”.

Ofsted’s thematic inspection of the role of virtual school heads published last year found that, where the role works well, it has a positive—some might go as far as to say transformative—effect. One of Ofsted’s key findings in that report referred to the very effective support virtual school heads provide. That support not only made a difference to children’s educational progress but often enhanced the stability of their placements and had a positive impact on their emotional well-being. Every inspection report of local authorities will in future, from November, include how virtual school heads are improving outcomes for looked-after children

On the aim of Amendment 36, I am sympathetic to the motivation of the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. If we want to maximise the benefits of pupil premium funding it is right to expect the virtual school head to have a role. As looked-after children will attract a pupil premium plus of £1,900 in 2014-15, dialogue between schools and virtual school heads will be vital.

We have therefore signalled our plans to extend the role of the virtual school head to work with schools to manage the pupil premium plus and ensure that the money is spent on securing the best educational support for children in care. Discussions between the school and local authority on the content of a child’s personal education plan and how the pupil premium will be used to support meeting the needs set out in that plan are crucial. That is a message that we intend strongly to emphasise in guidance.

I am grateful for the opportunity to discuss the role of the virtual school head in relation to care leavers. We know that their educational outcomes are not good enough compared to their peers and I recognise entirely how important it is that someone is there to support care leavers who are in, or who wish to return to, education. I can see therefore why there are calls to extend the role of the virtual school head to cover care leavers. In a number of local authorities, the virtual school head’s remit includes some overlap with care leaver services.

Although I share the objective of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in the amendment, I believe that addressing the educational needs of care leavers will not necessarily be met by adding a new duty to Section 23B. Extending in statute the role of the virtual school head to care leavers too widely risks undermining the very reason we are making the role statutory: to redouble our efforts to narrow the intractable attainment gap between what looked-after children achieve compared to their peers. If we extend the role of the virtual school head, it would add significant burdens to the local authority and the person undertaking that role and would dilute the impact of the role. We do not wish to do that.

I do not wish to appear complacent on this point. Supporting care leavers to stay in education and training is vital. That is why we have extended local authority responsibilities to care leavers up to the age of 25, where they are in education and training.

Under its new inspection framework, Ofsted will be looking at the quality of care leavers’ services and whether they have access to appropriate education and employment opportunities, including work experience and apprenticeships. They are encouraged and supported to continue their education and training, including those aged 21 to 24. Care leavers are progressing well and achieving their full potential through life choices, either in their attainment in further and higher education or in their chosen career or occupation.

If we are changing legislation, we have to be really sure that the changes are for the better and we have to have evidence of impact. We know that the virtual school head has had an impact on looked-after children nationally, and we cannot risk diluting that. There are other ways to ensure that the support that care leavers get to continue their education and training takes place.

I hope that I have provided reassurances to the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, and the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, of our commitment to improving outcomes for all looked-after children and care leavers, and that they will join me in welcoming our recent announcement on the pupil premium plus and withdraw their amendment.