Covid-19: Schools

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, we are acutely aware of the gap in education, particularly for disadvantaged students but, throughout this period, vulnerable children have been eligible to attend school and that group of course overlaps significantly with disadvantaged children. On the examinations next summer, Ofqual is currently consulting over the impact on those examinations.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the most vulnerable children are those in care. What extra learning support is being given to those children?

Covid-19: Schools

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 20th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, it is obvious that the good and protective factor that a school provides to children cannot be replaced. I assure my noble friend that in making this decision, consideration was given to the future education and social outcomes for children, alongside the health and epidemiological information and data. We are deeply concerned about the effect of continued school closures, particularly on disadvantaged pupils, and are looking at a range of interventions to help them catch up.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, did the Minister agree with the Government’s Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser when she added another condition, saying that Ministers have been told that changes to lockdown would require an effective system for tracing and isolating to be in place? She went on to say that changes should be based on observed levels of infection, not a fixed date. How does this affect schools?

[Baroness Berridge]

When the Government announced the five tests to be satisfied to plan for reopening on 1 June, we also included the enabling programmes mentioned in the road map. This includes the contact-tracing system. Testing has been ramped up, with a view to being able to introduce a “track and trace” system. This is in accordance with the scientific advice we have.

Covid-19: Schools

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education and Department for International Trade (Baroness Berridge) (Con)]

My Lords, it has always been made clear that the decision to reopen schools on 1 June is contingent on five tests being satisfied, including a decrease in transmission of the disease, and that once schools reopen there is a hierarchy of controls for them to put in place to lower the rate of transmission of the disease. It has been made clear by the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State in the other place yesterday that the opening date on 1 June is anticipated on the basis of the scientific evidence, but matters are under constant review.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

As has been said—the Minister will agree—we all want schools to reopen as soon as possible. Disadvantaged children, particularly those with special educational needs, are finding their learning getting further and further behind. But can the Minister understand how parents feel? Young children cannot be put in a bubble or socially isolate. They touch each other and play. It takes just one child or adult to pass on the infection and you have another care-home situation ripping right through our school system. Does she agree with the director of children’s services in Liverpool, who has said that no schools will open in Liverpool until the most rigorous risk assessment of the safety of children in those schools has been carried out? What is her view on that? Finally, will she publish the scientific evidence that shows it is safe to open schools?

[Baroness Berridge]

My Lords, the Secretary of State made clear in the House of Commons yesterday that scientific evidence will be published, and the minutes of SAGE up until about mid-April are currently available and will be updated. Of course, schools will do risk assessments on pupil safety, but the noble Lord is correct that early years and primary school children cannot be expected to socially distance in the way that adults and older children can. Public Health England’s advice is that the five steps of the hierarchy of control—such as regular cleaning of tables, regular hand-washing and children being in distinct groups of up to 15 with the same teacher and kept separate from other groups in the school—can limit and lower the rate of transmission.

Education: Gender Equality

Lord Storey Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge]

I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the outline of the pilot project. She is indeed right that there has to be a focus on women being promoted, particularly in the science field, and the national curriculum subject content now includes people like Rosalind Franklin. So, yes, I would be happy to look at the project and give the noble Baroness a response.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister will be aware that the introduction of free sanitary products in schools is a major step towards tackling gender inequality in the classroom, but pupils in many schools cannot use the products if their period starts unexpectedly, because their school bans children from using the toilet during lesson times. That can leave children feeling embarrassed or fearful about going to school. Will the Minister look at introducing guidelines for schools?

[Baroness Berridge]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for referring to the welcome initiative of introducing free sanitary products to our schools. I will take back to the department the specific issue he raises in relation to guidelines for head teachers. Obviously, students need to be able to access toilet facilities when they need to.

Educational Opportunities: Working Classes

Lord Storey Excerpts

Thursday 5th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, for her debate and for her tremendous contribution to education. Everyone should have access to outstanding education, whether they are from a working-class family or a BAME community or have behavioural or learning difficulties. That means that all our schools need to educate and enrich our children to the very highest standards. That happens when schools are well-led and our teachers are well-trained, highly motivated and well-respected, and when we put in the resources to make this happen.

Noble Lords have all had four minutes, so here are my four points on how we can support working-class children. First, “It starts with early years, stupid.” If we do not get it right in the early years, as we have heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, the attainment gap gets wider and wider as the child progresses through the school system. The first years of a child’s life are a critical period for social mobility. Evidence shows that the poorest children are already 11 months behind when they start school.

So what can we do? The Government need to review their 30 hours of free childcare and shift the entitlement from high-income families to those on lower wages. Secondly, we need to see the development, not decline, of children’s centres. They were an incredible way of providing for not just children but the whole family, particularly mums. Thirdly, as we have heard, the Government should invest in improving the qualifications of early years staff.

My second point is on special needs. Last night, we had a good debate on special needs in general and dyslexia in particular. Every speaker highlighted the need for early identification and intervention in providing the support needed. The education, health and care plans are not fit for purpose, and I welcome the Government’s proposal to review them. As my noble friend Lord Addington rightly said, teachers need to be trained to identify educational needs.

My third point is that children from disadvantaged backgrounds do not have the wraparound support that children from wealthier families have, such as one-to-one private tuition. For example, my daughter, at a secondary school in Liverpool, was told that she could not do three sciences because she was not very good at physics—surprise, surprise. We, as caring parents, bought in private physics tuition for her; we had the financial means to do that. Guess what? She passed all her science subjects with a first. She would be embarrassed if she knew I was saying this, but the point is that we had the means to provide that private tuition. When she was looking for a career—finally—we had the ability to network and to talk to friends. She was interested in the law, so was able to spend a week with a barrister. She also had the opportunity to enrich her interests at weekends, with different clubs and activities. That should not be the preserve of only those who can afford it; it should be the preserve of everybody. Whether you come from a council house or a mansion, you should have those opportunities.

As a norm, we should expect one-to-one or small-group tuition in our schools. We should see schools offering a gold standard in careers education, with careers monitoring and mentoring, particularly for disadvantaged pupils. Business and organisations should be encouraged to offer paid internships to young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I am delighted that the Liberal Democrats in the Whips Office all put money into a pot to employ, every year, an intern from a disadvantaged background on a living wage. Would it not be good if other groups did the same? We have had people from Bradford, Manchester and London. I very much like the proposal of the Sutton Trust, that state schools should be funded and incentivised to develop essential life skills, such as confidence and motivation.

My fourth point is on post-16 education. As the noble Lord, Lord Kirkham, rightly said, we should break down those barriers. Young men from working-class backgrounds are half as likely to take up an advanced apprenticeship than their better-off peers. Why is this? Our school system is still geared to academically able pupils. We need to realise that over half of young people would be better pursuing a vocational route in education. It took an amendment to the FE and research Bill from the noble Lord, Lord Baker, even to allow—God forbid—FE and university technical colleges to go into schools and show young people the variety of opportunities and courses available. I must tell the Minister that, sadly, many secondary schools actively discourage this from happening. There should be a proactive information service, where young people can easily find information about the best vocational opportunities and apprenticeship schemes available. This would help to increase parity of esteem with academic routes. Those are my four proposals.

Finally, I was interested in the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Knight, and the noble Baroness, Lady Thornhill, who talked about our present school system. I have always been concerned that children in our primary school are nurtured and developed, in small teaching and learning environments, but suddenly, at the age of 11—and some are summer-born children —we thrust them into large secondary schools, often with 800 to 1,000 pupils, and a very different ethos and environment. Children, particularly from working-class backgrounds, struggle to cope. Oh, how I regret the loss of middle schools. We have to think through how we can improve on those transitional arrangements.

I want to end by being positive and celebrating our education service, which is the means by which we are able to give every child and young person the opportunity to flourish, to be enriched, to discover the excitement of creative subjects and to find the joys of learning. It is wonderful. I have always taught in working-class communities—including some of the most deprived communities on Merseyside—and for me, it was an absolute privilege to teach those young children and see how, like a sponge, they soaked up knowledge. Imagine how I felt when a girl of Nigerian parentage, Intang Ekoku, went on to university and came back to teach at my school, in a working-class community. As the noble Lord, Lord Baker, rightly said, it is about changing life chances.

Schoolchildren: Dyslexia and Neurodiverse Conditions

Lord Storey Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I was very interested in the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Mann, because when I first started teaching in a place called Prescot, near St Helens, pupils who had behavioural problems or learning difficulties were referred to as “the remedials” and were pushed aside from the rest of the children. We have come a long way since then, thank goodness. I want to start by recognising the progress we have made in special educational needs in general, and dyslexia in particular. It is through the rugged determination of parents and numerous organisations, and their constant tenacity, that we have seen the progress we have made thus far. Speaking of rugged determination, one need look no further, of course, than my noble friend Lord Addington, who has secured this debate; we thank him for that.

If we go back 10 years or so, it was a very different state of affairs. Now, we have qualified special needs co-ordinators in our schools; whether they have the time to do the job properly, given their timetable commitments, is another issue. Many noble Lords have referred to the education, health and care plans, which were a really important development. Sadly, we did not realise at the time that their success in identifying special educational needs almost created an unsustainable situation. It was at a time when schools did not have many resources; schools and local government were facing huge financial problems. Parents felt let down, of course, when the appeals system became clogged up as well. We must ensure that those resources are there now for the education, health and care plans.

Two statistics really shocked me, and they have been mentioned already: 52% of teachers said they had no training in dyslexia; and, as my noble friend Lord Addington and the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, mentioned, schools in England are failing to diagnose at least 80% of children who have dyslexia. Those are frightening statistics. Let us put this in perspective: 10% to 15% of children are dyslexic; 14.9% of our pupils have special educational needs; and 3.1% of our pupils are on education, health and care plans. We need to sort out all that potential and talent among young people. As a number of noble Lords have said, the earlier we do it, the sooner we can sort those issues out. It is a sad state of affairs that £100 million a year is spent by local authorities in legal fees, fighting the parents who want dyslexia support for their child. Imagine if we used that £100 million in schools: we would be able to solve many of the problems that have been discussed. Talking about schools, I was asked by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, to go to Maple Hayes School and I thank him again for doing that. I actually learned a tremendous amount and was very impressed with that school.

Most teachers still get little or no formal training in addressing learning difficulties. Most teaching courses include options on teaching children with special educational needs—but notice the word “options”: it is not compulsory. What do we need to do now? As the noble Lords, Lord Sterling and Lord Bilimoria, have said, we need to spot this early on. We need to make sure that schools have resources for special educational needs. Some schools are facing financial difficulties and then have to find £6,000 for diagnosis and support, which leads to delay and excuses, and that is just plain daft. All training of teachers—whether at college, university, teachers-direct or Teach First—must have mandatory components on special educational needs. Teachers need to be able to recognise learning difficulties and there needs to be CPD in all our schools: the British Dyslexia Association has suggested 30 hours. The BDA has suggested that dyslexic assessors train teachers to spot signs in the classroom. I am not completely convinced about this; if you released time for the special needs co-ordinator and trained teachers, that would not be necessary.

I hope that the rugged determination shown by your Lordships—my noble friend Lord Addington in particular—and the various associations will continue until we get this issue right.