Schools Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Storey and Lord Wei

Committee stage
Wednesday 22nd June 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wei (Con)]

I am sorry to interrupt again, but the point about Finland is important, because many of us in education policy—I helped to set up Teach First—have studied this material and I do not believe Finland is as exceptional as people make it out to be. I brought Professor Hattie over 10 years ago, who is a researcher who studied 15,000 randomised control studies on education—the noble Lord, Lord Knight, knows what I am talking about. He looked at 30 million children across thousands of studies and found three things that affected their education the most by a standard deviation. They were simple: how well does the teacher, or the parent in home education, know the child? How difficult is the work? If it is too hard or too easy, it makes a big difference. And when they mark their work or give feedback, how good is that feedback? Those three things can work in any system or country, whether private or public. All the things we argue about in politics—private/public, the size of the class and teacher pay—were shown to make a limited difference in the randomised studies. Incidentally, televisions and screens were very bad, and keeping kids back a year took things back by a standard deviation.

We could debate Finland for a long time, but I would argue that home education has many of the hallmarks that the Finnish enjoy. They are: an incredibly great relationship between the well-paid teacher and the child; and the time, because they are not being monitored all the time, to set work at an appropriate level; and to give great feedback.

[Lord Storey (LD)]

I thank the noble Lord for that and would, at some point, like to talk to him about Finland. One of the other things we forget is that, just as a teacher in the classroom—I still miss teaching and miss my time in the classroom, because I got a great deal from that—home educators get a great deal from being with their children, learning with them and teaching them. We forget the importance that can have for the family home and for parents, whether they are a family or a single parent.

I end by going back to the point I was making: it is really important that we get this right. This is an opportunity to reset the dial, so that we achieve what we are all trying to get.