Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Lord Northbourne]

1: Before Clause 1, insert the following new Clause—
“Foundation stage
(1) The period in the life of a child between birth and compulsory school age shall be designated as the foundation years for that child.
(2) During a child’s foundation years, the English local authority area of the area in which the child lives is responsible for working with that child’s parents or carers and with relevant services to promote the child’s healthy, physical, social, emotional and cognitive readiness to enter school on reaching school age.”

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, it is fairly apparent that the amendments which we are discussing are probing amendments. They are couched in terms around the importance of school readiness; that is to say children, when they reach compulsory school age, being socially, physically, emotionally and cognitively ready to move into the environment of a primary school. My amendments are intended to raise an important issue: what authority or public body has overall responsibility for providing and for co-ordinating help and support for disadvantaged families and their children during the children’s foundation stage? That is a question to which I hope the Minister may be able to give us an answer because it is far from being clear in the legislation. It is an important question in the context of the Government’s policy to increase equality and social mobility in our schools. I hope that these amendments will provide an opportunity for the Government to outline their policy on this issue for the Committee so that, if necessary, more substantive amendments can be tabled at Report.

There is overwhelming evidence that a child’s parents or carers have a powerful influence on educational attainment and that the foundation years may have more influence on education even than the quality of the child’s school. To improve educational attainment for all we need to improve support for parents in the early years, particularly those experiencing difficulty or bringing up their children in challenging circumstances. Support for families is the task of a generation involving all the agencies which work with children and parents. Local authorities are in the right position to lead and should have, in my view, an explicit duty to do so. If they do not, we have to ask the Government to come off the fence and ask who is responsible for successfully preparing children in the foundation stage.

Recent reports by Frank Field and Graham Allen entitled respectively The Foundation Years and The Next Steps present compelling evidence that investment in early intervention and the foundation years can significantly improve life chances, reduce poverty and at the same time generate potential cash savings which have been estimated at £24 billion or more a year.

My other amendment in this group—Amendment 122 to Clause 40—requires the school inspectorate in proposed new paragraphs (d) and (e) to report on,

“the extent to which the school is working with parents”.

The existing legislation contains awfully little about working with parents, but all good schools should do that; where a school does not, pupils’ chances of success are prejudiced. Parents and Parliament have a right to know which schools are or are not doing their best to harness the contribution which parents can make to their children’s progress. It is interesting to note in this context that a government report that I was reading referred specifically to the success of Chinese children. We all know that Chinese parents are very pushy. They believe in their children, and the results are consequentially very satisfactory.

My proposed new clause addresses the preparation of young people in school, not only for work but for life in the family and in the community. It is intended to ensure that, in partnership with parents, schools pursue active policies so that, as far as possible, pupils have the opportunity at all stages of their school career, in an age-appropriate way, to learn about the exciting opportunities and important responsibilities that will open up to them as they grow up. That includes, of course, at an appropriate age, the joys and responsibilities of parenthood.

The Frank Field report has proposed—I strongly agree—that those issues should be sensitively addressed all through the time of growing up in school. From research he did with pupils in his constituency, he found a strong demand among young people themselves for more help and understanding of the problems that they will encounter as they grow up. Will that recommendation, which to some extent I have encapsulated in the amendment, become part of the Government’s policy or will they sweep it under the carpet?

[Lord Peston]

I have come specially to support the noble Lord on this. He refers to his amendment as a probing amendment, but in fact he puts his finger on what I regard as the single most important issue of education in our country at this time, particularly with his emphasis on the child’s parents or carers. He referred to the Chinese as pushy, but others of us were certainly pushy when we brought up our children. We were there for them all the time and taught them to read; we read to them first, of course. I am sure that many other parents in this Room have done the same sort of thing, but in this area we really are two nations, because other children’s parents are not like that at all—assuming that their parents or carers are there for them at all. Education is obviously overwhelmingly about personal development, but it also leads to people’s position in a highly competitive society. Too many of these children do not have a chance from the word go.

I hope very much to hear a positive response from the Government. The Government cannot take over the role of the parent—I do not suggest that we live in a society where that would even be remotely contemplated—but they must judge all their policies at least as being supportive in this area of activity. The noble Lord said that he was not going to divide us—of course, we do not divide on such matters in this Room—but we need something rather more substantial in the Bill that corresponds to the spirit of what he said, and that I, and I am sure all my colleagues, would support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I think that the Committee stage will have finished by then, but I am sure we can find another opportunity to discuss it.

[Lord Northbourne]

I will not take more than a moment. The Minister said that the Childcare Act 2006 had all the answers, but it does not mention school readiness anywhere. That is what my amendments are about. The noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, raised the question of inspections. I agree that inspections can be traumatic, but if you do not have them, how do you know which schools are and which are not, which local authorities are and which are not, which healthcare services are and which are not? That is a question which needs to be answered.

Finally, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for her intervention on the burden that the Bill would place on local authorities. I have to admit that I was tempted to put down a rather wicked amendment that would have suggested that the whole of the foundation years should become the responsibility of the Department for Education—which will benefit whether it is done well or not. On that note, I will of course read what the Minister has said and see whether I want to come back to it.

Forgive me, I have not been well and have a wife waiting outside to take me home. I promise to read Hansard and beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 1 withdrawn.

Education Bill

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I strongly support this Government’s policies on teaching in schools and academies. They are right to do more to improve the nation’s academic standards across the board. In particular, it is important to give more opportunities to our ablest children. However, the Government hope to achieve more than that. They hope to achieve greater equality, better outcomes for children from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds and more social mobility. These are all important objectives, which the Government have a good chance of achieving if, and only if, they successfully address the problems of disruption by pupils and disaffection in our schools. They will achieve this only if they pay more attention to the role and the problems of parents in the education of their children.

I fear the Government may be making the mistake of thinking that a child’s education takes place only in school. The truth is that every waking hour, from birth onwards, the child is learning. A child in full-time education spends around 28.5 per cent, I believe, of his waking hours in school. In the first three years of its life, a child’s experiences are wholly mediated by its parents and family. Parents get the first innings, but school readiness is crucial to their child’s success in school later.

In his introduction to last year’s White Paper The Importance of Teaching, Michael Gove says this:

“At the heart of our plan is a vision of the teacher as our society’s most valuable asset”.

In the same year a major report from Demos says:

“Parents are the … architects of a fairer society”.

The truth is that children need both teachers and parents working together. What parents do, or fail to do, is a powerful influence on their child’s development and life chances. Some speakers have already referred to Chinese children in this regard. Working with parents matters, yet the Bill makes no mention of the role of parents in preparing their child for school or in supporting them in school. Is this an intentional omission?

In reply to an Oral Question that I asked the Minister the other day, he said that the vast majority of the nation’s parents,

“are doing a good job”.—[Official Report, 19/5/11; col. 1483.]

Of course, he is absolutely right, but that does not mean that we should not pay attention to that minority who still have problems. To say that a significant minority of this nation’s children are not getting in their family the start in life they need is not necessarily to criticise or stigmatise those parents. In our society today quite a lot of parents need more help, education and support. In their recent reports to Government, Frank Field, Graham Allen and Clare Tickell have all addressed these issues and have made excellent proposals. However, as I read the signs—I hope I am wrong—it seems to me that many of their proposals are already beginning to be swept under the carpet by this Government because they are politically inconvenient. If that were to happen, it would be a tragedy. It would in my opinion greatly reduce the chances of achieving success in the Government’s objective of reducing social inequality and increasing social mobility. It could also prejudice the Government’s chances of achieving success in their objective of educating all children better because disruption in class damages the learning environment of all pupils and diverts resources from teaching to behaviour management. When they came into power, this Government undertook to help struggling families. Do they stick to that commitment?

Children: Parenting

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 19th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Northbourne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to define more clearly the responsibilities of parenthood.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the Government recognise that the vast majority of parents in this country understand their responsibilities and take them very seriously. They are doing a good job in bringing up their children. It is not government’s role to tell parents how to raise their children. The state already has clear powers to intervene where parents fail in the care of their children and we have no plans to add to the legislation on this issue.

[Lord Northbourne]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. I was particularly interested in the latter part of what he said—what one might call the no-nanny-state argument. It seems to me that the Government are on the horns of a dilemma. As I understand it, it is their policy to increase equality and social mobility. In February, we had two debates on the importance of early parenting in which speaker after speaker emphasised the importance of early parenting in enabling a child to succeed in school and in life. How do the Government plan to ensure as far as possible that parents understand and know the needs of their children, even if they—the parents—did not have a happy home life? Are the Government prepared to make it clear to parents that they are responsible for providing the parenting their children need, or at least to raise the issue?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I am extremely aware that few noble Lords in this House have done more than the noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, to champion the case for parenting, and there is broad agreement in this House about the importance of it. The noble Lord asked whether we have plans to specify parental responsibilities through more legislation, perhaps in the way that it has been done in Scotland. The answer is that we do not. Our view is that the Children Act 1989 sets out a very clear framework and having a new definition of responsibilities could complicate that. I am not sure that setting a declaratory definition would help. Most parents know what it is to be a parent and perform their role well. I am not sure that those who do not would be helped by something written down on a piece of paper. The priority is to give practical help to those parents, which I think all sides of the House agree is an important job.

Children: Early Intervention

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, for introducing this debate and for the brilliant way in which she explained the problem. I am extremely happy to be on the same side as her on this occasion.

The classic research of Bowlby, Ainsworth and others—indeed, almost all modern published work—confirms the importance for the child of secure loving attachment during the early years to a mother or surrogate mother. During the first year of life, infants learn to love, to feel confident and to deal with stressful circumstances and negative emotions in an organised manner. As an illustration of the importance of an appropriate environment in the early years of brain development, the noble Lord, Lord Winston, in an earlier debate on this subject, told the House that kittens are born blind, and that if you put a blindfold on one for no more than 21 days the cat will be blind for life.

Similarly the synapses in a child's brain are developed by that child's experiences. Key emotional and social development takes place in the early weeks and months. The human child needs regular positive interactions with nurturing adults in order to develop the complex networks of brain connections that they will need to form healthy relationships. I have been aware of this research and this story for some time, but I must admit that the full force of it has come to me only very recently when watching my daughter care for and play with her beloved first child. That child knows that she is safe and that she is valued more than anything else in the world. She is learning how to love and be loved.

Given that the emotional and social development of the nation's children depends so much on the quality of secure attachment to a mother or another secure attachment figure in those first months and years, does it not seem logical to argue that we as a society should be doing more to optimise the chances of child/mother relationships being secure and loving? This is the basic point which the noble Baroness and others have already made, but successive Governments have shied away from this proposition because intervention in the child/mother relationship can be intrusive. Indeed, the word “intervention” sounds just a little too much like interference. I would rather change the word, focusing in the opposite direction, and talk about prevention. I was extraordinarily happy to hear the noble Baroness and other speakers talking positively about prevention. In those terms, there are many things that we can do. I do not have time to go into them this afternoon, but one is better preparation for parenthood, starting perhaps in schools and certainly elsewhere too. There should be more support for first-time parents before and around the time of birth of the child, and in the first year of the child’s life. Also, we need to think about trying to create a society which more greatly values and encourages long-term parental commitment. There are also obvious elements that we must not forget, involving the improvement of the environment in which some parents are obliged to bring up their child. These include poverty, debt, ill health, violence, addiction and many more things that your Lordships know about.

I want to turn to the subject of grandparents. In all this work, there is a very important role for grandparents. In particular, they often have key roles as supporters of parents, as carers and often as surrogate parents. I was therefore most concerned recently to hear that before the end of April The Grandparents’ Association will have to close its helpline, manned mainly by volunteers but none the less costing money, because their financial support is to be withdrawn from 31 March. This helpline has been dealing with more than 8,000 calls a year, many involving legal advice or deeply complex and emotive problems faced by grandparents.

We all have to accept that cuts are necessary, but I cannot help wondering whether this cut will not cost a great deal more than it saves. In this context, I should be grateful if the Minister could give me an answer to three questions of which I have given him notice. First, do the Government recognise the important role which grandparents can play in supporting their grandchildren during their early years? Secondly, is the noble Lord aware that each year some 8,000 grandparents have been contacting The Grandparents’ Association helpline for advice and help, and that the association has been working with grandparents for more than 23 years? Thirdly, will the Minister please ask his right honourable friend to find some way at least to provide essential short-term financial support to The Grandparents’ Association helpline at least to give it time to seek other sources of funding for the helpline or, if necessary, to try to transfer its services in an orderly manner to some other provider?

Children: Adoption

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 9th December 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Northbourne]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to shorten the time taken to approve adoptions, particularly adoptions of infants.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, the Government have established an adoption advisory group to provide expert advice on removing barriers and delays to adoption. We have also written to local authorities to ask them to do everything possible to increase the number of children appropriately placed for adoption and to improve the speed with which decisions are made. The family justice review is currently considering what changes are needed to the family justice system, including the reduction in delays.

[Lord Northbourne]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord for that very encouraging reply. I am sure he is aware that every day that a young child bonds with a person who is not going to be his or her principal carer is to the disadvantage of that child. Has the noble Lord or the department thought about—and, if not, I ask him to put it to the committee he described—the concurrent planning scheme devised by the Thomas Coram Foundation for Children fairly recently, whereby the person who fosters the child is the person who ultimately will adopt it, so that the child has the minimum of chopping and changing in those precious early years?

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, I will certainly take that point back. I know that there are arguments in favour of concurrent planning. I am also aware, though, that people say that it is not necessarily a panacea for the problems that the noble Lord describes. As part of the broader point about discussions with the department, my honourable friend Mr Loughton, the Minister responsible for adoption, is extremely keen to make progress on this matter and has asked me whether, perhaps through the noble Lord, we could organise a meeting with all Peers who are interested in adoption, perhaps early in the new year, to get the benefit of views from this House and to help us try to drive this policy forward.

Schools White Paper

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am grateful for the comments of the noble Baroness that there is much in the White Paper that she can support. I am extremely aware of her strength of feeling on PSHE, and I have had an education at her hands on a number of fronts on that subject during the passage of the Bill, as I have also had from my noble friend Lady Walmsley. On the noble Baroness’s specific point about the curriculum, which we debated during consideration of the independent school regulations which cover academies, some aspects of sex education teaching would be covered by those regulations. It is important and we know that academies teach those subjects.

[Lord Northbourne]

The noble Lords gave an assurance to the House that we would have an opportunity to discuss the curriculum.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

Forgive me. We have discussed that point. The review of the curriculum will be announced shortly and that will be an opportunity to return to the points about which the noble Baroness feels very strongly.

Education: Pupils and Young People

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, for introducing this debate. In the short time available this afternoon, I will try to focus on one simple aspect of the problem, the problem of providing excellence in education for children from disadvantaged families, focusing in particular on those children who arrive in school without having a secure and loving attachment to their mother or surrogate mother in the first three years of their lives. It is interesting that the noble Baroness, Lady Sharp, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, and the noble Lord, Lord Addington, have all spoken fluently about the importance of the family as an agent in achieving excellence in schools for children.

Excellence in education for all will not be achieved until we address more effectively the problems of education in the family in the first three years. A small but important minority of children in this country are arriving in school unable to cope with the challenges of school life because they have never experienced the encouragement and love that they need. Why does that happen? I have made a list of causes, but I probably do not need to delay your Lordships very much on them. There are school-age mothers, mothers with mental health problems or drug and alcohol addiction, or who are subject to domestic violence. Perhaps the majority of those mothers come from homes where they are distressed by loneliness, poverty, inappropriate housing, and debt and often, crucially, have not themselves had any experience of happy family life or of “good enough” parenting. As for the fathers, some may be there to help, but an awful lot are not.

The children of such families often reject school and fail in school. They often cause trouble in school, get excluded and end up without education. Lacking education, they have little chance of well-being in life. For our society to allow that to happen is both foolish and cruel. It is cruel to the children concerned because it will blight their lives. It is foolish because we as a society cannot afford to have disadvantage handed down from generation to generation in that way. It is an issue of well-being, but it is also an issue of equality and social mobility. As long as we have a cadre of children at the bottom of the pile who are not succeeding, we cannot hope to move towards broadly-based equality.

What are we doing wrong? When they came into power in 1997, the previous Government were very aware of those problems, and they introduced a number of measures, including the Sure Start programme, Every Child Matters and a raft of other initiatives to help parents to prepare for school. Sadly, they do not seem to have worked. They have not successfully helped the most disadvantaged families. That is because they were introduced as universal services, and the smart parents—I mean smart in the American sense—saw their chance to get in there and get the benefits, but the disadvantaged parents were not confident enough to walk through the door. Some hard-to-reach parents are frightened to walk through the door because they are afraid that when they are identified as not looking after their children too well, those children will be taken away from them. We have to face those problems; we have somehow to learn to target the really disadvantaged parents.

There are a lot of things that we could do, but I shall not try to detail them—partly because I do not have time and partly because most of your Lordships will be aware of them. We should be much more effective in reducing unwanted pregnancy. It is ridiculous that we have a society in which we have effective and easily available contraception, but the unwanted pregnancy rate goes on growing. We should shape benefit and tax structures to favour those parents who are prepared to make the commitment to live together and bring up their child. We should strengthen relationship counselling. We should radically reform teaching of life skills and relationships in schools, which I believe is coming up in the Government’s programme—I very much hope that it will. We need much more support for parents in ante and postnatal services, and so forth.

Finally, we need a change of heart about the rights of children. Children have a right to family life. I believe that that means that they have a right to decent family life. That implies that there are obligations on parents, which we ought to be thinking about very seriously.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Monday 28th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Having PSHE as part of the school curriculum will give it more respect, with more teachers trained and more parental attention and involvement. Parents and pupils would welcome it. Everyone would be clear on where they stood and what was to be done. It really is time that we recognised the immense value that PSHE has for schools and communities and how young people can benefit from having it in the curriculum. I beg to move.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I have tabled my amendment for the same reason as the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, because it seemed to me that this Committee should be able to debate compulsory PSHE and sexual relationships education. Noble Lords will remember that this was debated and powerfully argued by the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Massey, but there really was no time for a proper debate during wash-up.

I open my remarks by briefly stating my position. It is a great pity that this has become a sort of battle. Whether PSHE should become compulsory is not a yes or no question. It tremendously depends on what is to be taught and who is going to teach it. We need to know not only what the government guidelines say but what is going to be taught. If I had been a pupil of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in one of her classes, I am sure that I would be much better informed even than I am today—and I should have enjoyed it. However, it is important to know that there are enough teachers available before we start making something compulsory. Otherwise, Bloggs, the geography teacher, who is not much good, will be put on to do PSHE, partly because it is a difficult and tiresome thing to teach. That would be absolutely disastrous.

I was told only the other day that, contrary to what the noble Baroness said, recent research shows that the sort of diet of sex and condoms delivered to 14 to 16 year-olds in most schools today makes absolutely no difference at all to the number of teenage pregnancies among the group. Unless and until there is satisfactory and independent evidence that it does make a difference, there is a strong argument for considering whether we cannot improve what schools are delivering.

I am assured by a number of experts, including representatives of Ofsted, that an increasing body of evidence shows that what makes a difference is the whole-school ethos to which the child is exposed. When families are willing and able to provide supportive parenting to their child, it seems axiomatic that parents should be consulted and involved as partners, particularly in any programme of sexual relationship education. I expect that that would be the case in a great many of the academies that we are talking about today. However, when home life is chaotic, the schools step in and make up for what the family cannot give.

Whether it is learnt at home or in school, it appears that what makes a difference is learning in a secure environment where each child is valued and respected and each child is safe and loved. It is learning that the way in which you treat others matters and that you, too, can be a success in spite of a disadvantaged background. Ofsted reports show that those schools where teaching and a whole-school ethos consistently encompass those values are those that it finds to be outstanding on academic results and child well-being. Some of them are working in very disadvantaged areas.

There are two extremely good reports on 20 primary schools and, I think, 12 outstanding secondary schools working in disadvantaged areas. Perhaps I might briefly quote extracts from those Ofsted reports. First, the report on 20 outstanding primary schools says, among a great many other things:

“It is no longer acceptable to use a child’s background as an excuse for underachievement. The challenge for schools is to make a difference … Viewed in these terms, the job of the school may be construed as providing, through education and care for children’s well-being, advantage where it is lacking, mentoring and support for parenting where it is needed, and complementary provision in a school community of high ideals and aspirations … Primary schools, together with”,

other school providers,

“of education and care, are in a pre-eminent position when it comes to having a lasting impact”,

on a child’s future. Secondly, its report on the secondary schools says:

“The outstanding schools in the sample succeed for the following reasons. They excel at what they do, not just occasionally but for a high proportion of the time. They prove constantly that disadvantage need not be a barrier to achievement … They have strong values and high expectations that are applied consistently and never relaxed”.

A prerequisite for respect for others is respect for self. For children from disadvantaged and chaotic families, that may not easily be learnt at home. Excellent schools can build self-esteem and emotional intelligence right across the school in an age-appropriate way. That involves a high level of staff commitment and strong leadership. Schools that generate empathy, self-confidence and aspiration of this kind lead to fewer early pregnancies, but that is not the whole story. They also prepare young people—again, age by age and in an age-appropriate way—for the responsibilities of adult life and parenthood and so could help to break the cycle of disadvantage passed on from generation to generation in some families today.

What are the Government’s plans for PSHE and SRE? I hope that they will reject or substantially revise the guidelines produced earlier this year by the previous Government, which concentrate mainly on contraception and largely ignore the role of cementing relationships and creating a stable family. The guidelines make no more than passing reference to the importance of supportive parenting, of a whole-school ethos or of respect for others and for self. I also hope that the Government will delay making SRE compulsory until they are satisfied that there are enough well trained teachers available to deliver this sensitive coverage.

Finally, I hope that the Government will focus their resources on encouraging more schools to develop and deliver whole-school policies that support the emotional and social development of all their pupils, including the less academically able. In this context, I very much hope that the academies that we are talking about today will, in particular, be free to adopt innovative policies—including a wide range of syllabus activities that will provide opportunities for all pupils to experience success—and facilities that include, where appropriate, boarding facilities. I hope that they will try to develop a whole-school ethos which is positive and supportive and which develops emotional intelligence and respect—both self-respect and respect for others. Can the Minister give me any comfort on those issues?

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lucas]

I had better address my amendment in this group, since it is the exact opposite of two of the amendments just spoken to by my noble friend. My noble friend Lady Walmsley and I will be in perfect time at eight o’clock tomorrow morning as we practise for the Lords versus Commons rowing race, but there seems to be some dissonance at the moment.

It has long been said that the only people capable of organising school transport effectively are local authorities. I have never seen any evidence produced for that. It seems to go with the assertion that local authorities organise everything best. If that is true, there is no danger in giving academies the right to organise school transport because they will always turn to the local authority, as it does it best. However, I suspect from the practices of local authorities that I have experienced that that will not be the case. Many local authorities, particularly in rural areas, will not offer transport outside the catchment area of the school, even if there are others a mile or so beyond it who might conveniently be reached by the bus going an extra mile.

Many local authorities are not responsive to the requirements of schools and parents in other ways. They just want to organise things efficiently for the network as a whole. The idea that what is efficient for the network as a whole is in some way best for schools and parents and is cheapest is extremely arguable and the best way to test it is to give academies freedom to organise school transport for themselves. When it is more efficient for them to do so, they will do so; when it is not, they will use local authorities. That way we will get the best of all worlds.

[Lord Northbourne]

Amendment 69 is a permissive amendment along the same lines as that tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lucas. We are trying to be overprescriptive in this. There may be circumstances under which it would be appropriate for charges to be made, possibly because the child’s parents were well off or because a charity had agreed to pay for the extra facilities being talked about. I do not see why we should screw the whole thing down in the way that it is screwed down in the Bill. My amendment loosens it up and allows a decision to be made on the basis of the facts and the best interests of the child.

[Lord Adonis]

There is in fact no sector of education that has more experience of academy-type schools than special education because of the existence of a large number of non-maintained special schools that are sponsored and managed by outstanding charities such as Barnardo’s and a number of other charities whose presidents are in the Chamber this evening. They are entirely independently managed but take their pupils largely or wholly by way of referrals from local authorities.

The improvement of special educational needs provision was of great concern when my party was in office and I know that it will be of great concern to the Minister. During my time in the department, I looked at this in detail and, so far as I could tell, there is no difference in inspection grades, quality or responsiveness to the needs of the special education community between maintained and non-maintained schools. There are sectors where schools that are maintained or non-maintained perform better and sectors where they perform less well. EBD is a classic case where special schools, whether maintained or non-maintained, perform less well.

Indeed, this is an area that needs a significant injection of new dynamic energy of the kind that academies could well breathe into the special schools sector. However, I saw no evidence that a school being managed in the maintained system or in the non-maintained system, which actually gives it greater independence in management than academies have, made a difference either to its responsiveness to the needs of pupils with particular special educational needs or to its maintained collaboration with local authorities, because the whole pupil referral base of these schools depends on the local authorities being willing to place their pupils in them. I therefore do not share concerns about the principle of academies in the special schools sector.

On the contrary, in crucial areas of special educational needs, particularly EBD, the dynamic innovation and attention to the needs of particular sectors that academies can bring could lead to significant improvements in provision and could enable existing special schools to expand their provision and to adapt to improve the way in which they meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs in ways that enhance the overall quality of the state education system.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Northbourne]

19: Clause 1, page 1, line 20, after “pupils” insert “or prospective pupils”

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I shall speak also to Amendments 20, 42, 44, 62 and 71. They are probing amendments, designed to ascertain what the Government are really planning or, if they are not planning anything, to try to encourage them to do so.

The amendments relate to special educational needs in the context of emotional and behavioural disadvantage, because the needs of EBD children are in some ways very different from those of many other SEN children. I shall change the mood, I hope, of the debate by asking whether academies could not be a positive force for good in the provision of help for these disadvantaged children.

Let us not delude ourselves: local authorities are in charge at the moment and it is not going wonderfully well. As we sit here today, there are nearly 1 million young people in this country who are not in education, employment or training—the so-called NEETs. That is about 10 per cent of the total population of 16 to 18 year-olds. I see this group of young people as a challenge and possibly a great opportunity for the new academies. But if the academies are to tackle this challenge, they must have the freedom and the power to address it effectively. I will quote from three recent reports that confirm the nature and the urgency of this problem.

Action for Children’s report earlier this year referred to the overriding importance of intervening as early as we can to support our most vulnerable children and their families. It states:

“The deprivation these families experience is deeper and more complex than poverty alone, and the belief at the heart of this work is therefore that fiscal help alone will not stop their problems from being passed on through the generations”.

The report goes on:

“Where there are multiple risk factors, the evidence is that deprivation is passed down from one generation to the next … This is often seen in the way relationships develop: children are defiant, blamed by parents and disliked by siblings. They are unpopular at school and get into fights or suffer bullying. Low self-esteem is exacerbated. They do badly at school, become involved in crime and drugs, and by the time they are 17 are on their way to becoming a career criminal. This may seem dramatic, but it is a recognised journey that too many of our children have travelled”.

In the Times last week, Kathryn Ecclestone, Professor of Education and Social Inclusion at the University of Birmingham said:

“There is broad agreement that Britain faces a crisis of mental ill health and poor emotional wellbeing, especially among children … Growing numbers of policymakers and teachers believe that emotional wellbeing is more important than reading, writing and numeracy. The Government’s social and emotional aspects of learning strategy asserts that we cannot leave the “skills” of emotional literacy and wellbeing to “dysfunctional” families”.

I have one final quote. The Centre for Social Justice Green Paper dated 10 January 2010 states:

“Stable … families are at the heart of strong societies … The absence of a stable, nurturing family environment has a profoundly damaging impact on the individual, often leading to behaviour which is profoundly damaging to society. Family breakdown is particularly acute in our most deprived communities. In these areas the concept of society is, for many, alien; whole communities are socially excluded from the mainstream. It is in these areas that we witness the highest levels of worklessness … and offending. If we are to create a fairer, more socially mobile society then we must invest in strengthening families”.

These reports all focus on the needs of children from severely disadvantaged, hard-to-reach, chaotic, inadequate families. Such children present a specific educational problem. If we could get this Bill right, it could bring new hope for many of those children and those families who, through no fault of their own, cannot provide their children with the long-term security, love, hope and boundaries that they need.

President Roosevelt said in the 1930s that it was a wicked thing to destroy a man’s hope, but it is a wicked thing to allow children to grow up without hope. Many of these children end up being statemented as having emotional and behavioural difficulties and often drop out of education altogether. They tend to be lacking in self-confidence, insecure, aggressive, quick to anger and deeply unhappy. It is with this group of children that I have had the privilege of working as a governor of an EBD school and for 16 years in the context of youth programmes at Toynbee Hall in Tower Hamlets. These children, whose families have failed them, comprise a socially and emotionally damaged underclass of which our society should be ashamed. My amendments intend to probe the Government's intentions in relation to the freedom of these academies to innovate in the best interests of their pupils.

I have just one or two questions for the Minister. Giving power to parents to choose may well be a way in which to improve the standard of schools, but what happens to those children whose parents are neither able nor willing to support their children, or who are not concerned, or who do not know how to do so? Who will fight for them? Secondly, with the children in this group the damage has usually been caused in the family long before the child reaches school—even primary school. Will the new academies have the power and resources to reach out and support parents of pupils in school as well as supporting, in the child’s early years, the parents of children who may later become pupils at the school? The noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, asked that question earlier this evening. I assure the Committee that it is possible to help such parents. I know of two charities already doing excellent work in this area. Family Links, based in Oxford, last year helped some 80,000 parents. School Home Support, based in London, supported about 19,000 families and children last year. Will the proposed academies be able to undertake such work, whether through an associated primary school, a children’s centre or whatever?

Thirdly, will the new academies be able to deliver an innovative curriculum based on their pupils’ needs, which are pre-eminently to develop self-confidence and emotional intelligence as well as age-appropriate interpersonal skills. Could the academies do that, even if it involved omitting many of the academic subjects in the national curriculum? For this category of children, it is essential that they should have some opportunity for hope and success. If they are put neck and neck against children of much greater intellectual ability, it is very destructive.

The Government propose to allow a selection of pupils for special schools that become academies, if such a selection is in the best interests of the pupil. The question that I am going to ask now is controversial. Why do they not allow selection in other academies if it can be shown that such selection would be in the best interests of the pupil?

Finally, who will be in charge under this academy system for the well-being of each child? Will it be the social services, the academy or some combination of the two? I beg to move.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his amendments. His questions have ranged very widely and well beyond the question of academies. Sure Start, nursery education and the pupil premium are all part of a strategy to deal with the problems that he raises. As we all know, the problems that he raises take us way beyond what the education sector in itself can deal with. We have been discussing those with special educational needs across a range of amendments already and have stressed that academies will serve local children of differing abilities, as now. The only exception will be outstanding converting grammar schools, which will be expected to partner weaker local schools. There will be no increase in the number of schools selecting by academic ability, including free schools and converting independent schools. We are offering additional freedoms to academies in a number of areas, including the curriculum, but those freedoms are underscored by a requirement that ensures parity with maintained schools in relation to admissions, exclusions and SEN. That means that Amendment 19 is, I suggest, unnecessary. The requirement to make provision for pupils with SEN effectively includes a requirement to make provision for prospective pupils with SEN.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, we are indeed talking about something that goes wider than academies themselves. I visited a secondary school in Bradford some months ago and found that all these issues were raised in the local community. People were concerned that, in pursuing league tables, schools in the area did not do their best to push the difficult pupils off on one another, so as to up their game in the league tables. We are all conscious that this is a long-term problem and one that we shall have to continue to grasp as we move towards establishing more academies.

As regards the curriculum, children’s statements will specify the provision required to meet each child’s needs. This will include the curriculum requirement and whatever else is needed to meet emotional and behavioural needs. Academies will have greater flexibility in relation to the curriculum. That is part of what is intended. Academies will be encouraged to work with other local services, both public and third sector, to cope with these sorts of problems. As the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, remarked, this issue has been with us for several generations and it will not go away very quickly. We must do our utmost to ensure that the schools we are trying to develop pick up these children and give them the help that they need. The greater curriculum flexibility that the academies can provide may help in this respect.

[Lord Northbourne]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. I shall, of course, read what he has said in more detail. However, I wish to make one or two small points. I think that he referred to what I was saying as not being part of education. Education is the fundamental development of the child.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

I said that it goes wider than education.

[Lord Northbourne]

I accept that. I do not know whether the noble Lord has ever tried to get a statement, but I have friends who have had to get statements for disabled children who they have adopted. It is unbelievably difficult to get a statement out of the local authority. You have to be prepared to fight and fight. I support the Government. Let us look at this as an opportunity because, quite honestly, some local authorities are not doing terribly well. Some are doing well, but quite a lot are not, so let us recruit the academy movement into trying to solve some of these problems. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

Academies Bill [HL]

Lord Northbourne Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

I have two amendments in this group, Amendments 134 and 135. Their purpose is to allow schools to change their religious designation if they wish and to prevent new faith schools appearing merely as a consequence of this legislation. Noble Lords will know that I have considerable reservations about faiths running schools. However, if we must have faith schools, they should be set up only in response to need and the requirement of parents to have their children educated in their faith. It should not be in any way accidental.

During our meeting, the Secretary of State made it clear that the purpose of this legislation was not specifically to create a lot of new faith schools, although of course we accept that many current faith schools may wish to become academies. That is why Amendment 134 inserts the word “only” so that the protection of the current faith designation applies only if the school is already a faith school. Amendment 135 goes on to require the governing body to pass a specific resolution to have the school maintain its religious character. This requires it either to reaffirm the religious character of the school or, if it wishes, to decide to make a change. For example, a Church of England school could become a multi-faith school, or a Roman Catholic school could add some other religion to its current designation; or it may become an all-inclusive academy. This might apply to the many primary schools referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, in her speech just now.

We heard on Monday from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Liverpool about the joint Church of England/Roman Catholic schools in Liverpool. These multi-faith schools are welcome, bringing together as they do children from different faith households. This can only be good for community cohesion. My amendment would make it possible for schools to decide to go along this route at the point of their conversion, if I can use an appropriate word, to an academy.

[Lord Northbourne]

I greatly respect the position of the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, with regard to the Humanist Association and the humanist view of the world, but does she not accept that that also is a faith? It is a world view which certain people take—and they may well be right—but I do not see why it should be treated differently from any other faith. I wonder whether the right reverend Prelate agrees.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I would not call humanism a faith; I would call it a belief.

--- Later in debate ---

Lastly, I support what the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, said. I very much go along with the amendment in the name of the right reverend Prelate and the suggestion that those who attend academies should be drawn mainly from the local area. However, I had dealings with state boarding schools when we discussed previous education legislation in this House, and think that they are very impressive. They serve a very important need, and what he says about them is correct. Similarly, I come from Surrey and we have quite a lot to do with the Yehudi Menuhin School. These specialist schools are brilliant, but they obviously cannot serve a narrow area. They have to serve a wider area, so I very much agree with him.

[Lord Northbourne]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Adonis, on state boarding schools. It is my experience that, for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, the boarding school solution can very often be the only one that works.

[Baroness Williams of Crosby]

My Lords, I support very strongly the arguments made by my noble friend Lord Greaves on removing primaries from the present list of schools that can become academies. I will very quickly provide a few additional arguments in support of his well-argued speech.

First, primary schools are in many ways the fundamental building blocks of community throughout the country. Sometimes they are Church of England primary schools, sometimes they are not, but in almost every town or village where they exist that is what they are seen to be by the populations of those areas. They are therefore not only educational institutions; in many ways, they are crucial social institutions that help to hold communities together. In fact, more and more, the local primary school is at the heart of whether a village survives as a village or becomes in effect another suburb.

Secondly—my noble friend Lord Greaves implied this, but I want to underpin his arguments—primary schools are heavily dependent on local authority advice services, whether in relation to special educational needs, staff relationships or legal matters. They very often simply cannot afford to buy in advice or get advice from a private source because they are too small, as my noble friend argued, and often too isolated to be able to master that advice. However, they need it, and, for a very small primary school, getting that advice can make disproportionate demands on the school budget. Primary schools simply cannot sustain these services easily—and special educational needs are one of the most central—if the local authority advice services disappear. One question for the Minister is this: if one gets to the point at which those advisory services are mostly disappearing because such a large proportion of the schools that are served by them have chosen to become academies, will he look at the possibility of some sort of residual advisory service for small schools that simply cannot afford to sustain such advice themselves?

In addition, primary schools often require assistance on matters such as appeals and dealing with children who, for one reason or another, have disciplinary problems and are likely to be excluded. It is too much to ask primary school heads too often to take difficult decisions that require legal advice on their own—a position in which some primary school heads find themselves.

Thirdly, primary schools could suffer from a talent drain if they had to battle against a small, or perhaps even substantial, number of primary school academies in which, say, teachers of mathematics or teachers with special abilities with SEN children are very much in demand. In that case, primary schools would come at the very bottom of the pecking order.

Last of all, primary schools—at least in my view—require the support of their local community to a greater extent than secondary schools do, so the argument for having governing bodies that sustain and include members of the local community is particularly strong.

What does that add up to? As my noble friend has argued, it adds up to treating primary schools at least as a more distant case for becoming academies than secondary schools are treated. It would be very easy to disrupt the primary school system if one is not careful, and, once a proportion of primary schools become academies, it begins to become virtually impossible to decide strategically how to meet the needs of all children in an area. I therefore suggest to the Minister that serious consideration should be given to the possibility of considering primary schools at a later stage and to permitting a few primary schools to go ahead with becoming academies as part of a pilot scheme. If the new politics means anything, it means that we must be able to look at experiments without insisting that they are universalised before we know whether they work. For the reasons that I have given, the argument for considering primary schools at a later stage, if at any stage, should be made very strongly in our discussions, because they are different, they are dependent on the local authority, they are central to their local communities and they are in a different position from that of secondary schools.