Special Educational Needs
Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts(4 weeks ago)
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Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
The Government are committed to doing everything we can to ensure that the process of going through an education, health and care plan—even now, only 50% of parents get them within 20 weeks of applying for them—is made much easier. I am sure that there are ways that we can build on work from the previous Government to ensure that that happens. Fundamentally, the problem with the system, which we also inherited from the previous Government, is that too many parents feel the need to go through this arduous process alone, because they do not have the support in the rest of the school system and do not get identification early enough. That is what, more fundamentally, we need to put right, and that is what the Government are committed to doing.
Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
In Wales, the additional learning needs framework was introduced in September 2021 to provide children with an independent development plan in place of the SEN statement. There is also a right to advocacy for children—an active offer of advocacy—provided by the National Youth Advocacy Service Cymru. Have the Government evaluated these initiatives, and would they help to alleviate the pressure in England? My grandson is being helped with special schooling and travel under just such a plan. Cardiff is truly an exemplar that all local authorities should follow.
Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)
I am very pleased to hear that Labour-led Wales is providing a good service for the noble Lord’s grandchild. In the fundamental reform that we need to undertake, we will be very keen to learn from good experience, wherever it comes from. I will certainly ask officials in the department to look into the examples that the noble Lord highlighted.
Schools: Classics
Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts(9 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Thomas of Gresford (LD)
Is the Minister aware that the teaching of classics is supplemented by private provision, such as the excellent week-long residential courses in Latin conducted, very appropriately, at Gladstone’s Library? Will he consider supplementing or assisting pupils from the state sector who are currently missing out with bursaries to attend such courses?
Lord Nash
My noble friend refers to an excellent programme, which I would like to hear more about. I hope that, after the election, there will be a further round of independent/state school partnerships, which have been promoted by this Government. I would welcome an application in that regard.
Schools: Classics
Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts(12 years ago)
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Lord Thomas of Gresford
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, must be congratulated on introducing this debate. He failed to mention one of the most distinguished classicists in the Room, who was my former law tutor at Cambridge. The noble and learned Lord, Lord Lloyd of Berwick, not only carried away first-class honours in the first part of the tripos but won the ancient and much revered Sir William Browne gold medal in 1951, for, I think, an ode in the style of Sappho. That feat did not prevent him getting first-class honours with distinction in part two of the law tripos. I am afraid that I was a student of baser metal. Indeed, my director of studies, Professor Edward Kenney of Peterhouse, the professor of Latin in the university, advised me at the end of an undistinguished part one to read something else, which is how I came under the control of my noble and learned friend, Lord Lloyd.
It was asked then and still is: what is the point of a classical education? For me, it is the source of those generous liberal values which have from time to time leavened the culture and civilisation of Europe and the West. On common humanity across millennia, I have always been tickled by Homer’s tale that old men love to talk of their deeds of valour in past battles. Anyone who has ever played rugby will know that when two or three old rugby players get together over a pint of beer, they talk about their past battles. As to love, Hector’s farewell to Andromache and his son—to fight a battle that he did not desire but had, for the sake of honour, to endure—touches us to the heart. The fall of sacred Troy, the death of his father and his brothers and his own predicted end at the hands of Achilles meant nothing compared with the pain he felt that his wife would be sold into slavery and that those who saw her would weep and say:
“That woman is Hector’s wife”.
On fidelity, Argus, Odysseus’s dog, was cast out on to a heap of dung. He was covered with fleas and the only creature to recognise Odysseus as he returned to Ithaca from his travels. Argus lifted his ears and wagged his tail but was too weak to get up from the pile of dung. Homer tells us that as Odysseus departed:
“Argos passed into the darkness of death, now that he had fulfilled his destiny of faith and seen his master once more after twenty years”.
We touch people over that period of time—3,000 years—and common humanity is there.
Then there were the beginnings of democracy in Athens in the golden period with an assembly open to all citizens, regardless of wealth or class. It had an executive council chosen by lot, which, as your Lordships know, is a solution sometimes proposed for this House. There was justice by the verdict of one’s peers, the creation of the jury and courts composed of jurors drawn from the older citizens, who heard cases without the intervention of judges or lawyers—those who buzzed, as Aristophanes put it in “The Wasps”. There was the defiance of unjust law, told by Sophocles in the story of Antigone, whose loyalty to her brother led her to defy the edicts of the tyrant Creon. This is where drama was born; not just drama but comedy, poetry, Greek sculpture and architecture, which gave inspiration to the Renaissance and permeates the whole of our own civilisation. There were the philosophers, Socrates and Plato, who laid down the foundations of the philosophy that we share.
Romans were concerned with more mundane matters: belief in their right to rule over a lesser humanity; the exercise of power; law and order; dominion, with the spreading of boundaries “wider still and wider”—there was something of the Conservatives about them, one tends to feel. However, we learn much from the fate of the Roman empire when the Visigoths broke down the gates of Rome.
I heard at the weekend that my grandchild is taking up the study of Latin. The noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, is right: it is all down to inspirational teachers. I was fortunate in having two inspirational teachers in my state school, Frederick Rowlands and Mr Noel Jones. They inspired me to appreciate my place in the world and the fact that humanity is the same now as it was then. These are values that I hope will continue to be maintained.