School Condition Allowance
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
My hon. friend the Under-Secretary of State for the School System (Lord Agnew) has made the following written ministerial statement:
Today, I am announcing the allocation of £1.4 billion in 2018-19 to maintain and improve the condition of the education estate. Investing in our school buildings is a key part of the Government’s plan to ensure that every child has the opportunity of a place at a good school, whatever their background.
For the financial year 2018-19, the £1.4 billion of funding includes approximately:
£0.7 billion for local authorities, voluntary aided partnerships, larger multi-academy trusts and academy sponsors, to invest in their own condition priorities.
£0.5 billion for academies and sixth-form colleges through the condition improvement fund—the outcomes of bids to this fund will be announced later this year.
£0.2 billion of devolved formula capital to be allocated directly to schools later in 2018.
To provide stability for schools while we review the approach to capital funding for 2019-20, we have continued the existing capital funding approach for the financial year 2018-19.
In addition, £100 million of revenue generated from the soft drinks industry levy will be provided in 2018-19 for the healthy pupils capital fund. This fund is intended to improve children’s and young people’s physical and mental health—for example, by improving playgrounds and sports facilities, or kitchens, dining or medical facilities. The healthy pupils capital fund is being allocated alongside 2018-19 school condition funding.
Details of today’s announcement will be published on the gov.uk website, and copies will be placed in the Library of the House.
[HCWS546]
Foster Care
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Thank you for the reminder, Mr Howarth. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) on securing this important debate and on a very powerful and informed opening speech. There have also been powerful speeches from the hon. Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman), and a moving speech by the hon. Member for Dundee West (Chris Law).
I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak about the Government’s plans for foster care. The hon. Member for Sefton Central has taken an interest in the independent review of fostering from the outset, and he discussed its purpose and remit with the Department’s officials. I am glad we can revisit some of those concerns now the review has concluded.
In his excellent opening speech, the hon. Gentleman made an important point about educational outcomes for children in care, which is something that I, as Schools Minister, care deeply about. Of children in care, 17.5% achieved A to C grades in their English and maths GCSEs, compared with 58.8% of other children. The average attainment 8 score for children in care stands at about 22.8, compared with 48.1 for other children.
Alongside the independent review of fostering that the Department commissioned, the Education Committee conducted an inquiry into fostering. My hon. Friend the Minister for Children and Families is discussing the reports’ findings with the Committee at this very moment—obviously the right hand arranged that meeting, while the left hand arranged the timing of this debate. We are considering the recommendations set out in the independent review alongside those made by the Education Committee. I will set out the Government’s plan for a formal response to both reports, which we will publish in spring.
We recognise that not everyone will agree with the conclusions of the independent review, or of the Education Committee, but importantly, we have an opportunity to work together to improve the foster care system and to better support looked-after children and foster- parents. We cannot do that alone: not all the reports’ recommendations are for central Government. It is important that we work with local authorities, independent fostering agencies, foster-parents and, of course, young people themselves, as we develop and deliver the Government’s response.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central raised the issue of local government funding. He will be aware that the 2015 spending review made more than £200 billion available to local authorities for local services, including children’s services, up to 2019-20—the end of the spending review period. The Government will also provide additional council tax flexibilities in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Funding for children’s services is an un-ring-fenced part of the wider local government finance settlement, which gives local authorities the flexibility to focus on locally determined priorities and their statutory responsibilities. Local authorities have used that flexibility to increase spending on children’s and young people’s services to around £9.2 billion in 2015-16.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I appreciate that the Minister is not in his usual role. I asked the Minister for Children and Families a question yesterday that he was unable to answer, so I hope the Minister will be able to today. How does his Department square the circle with regard to local authority funding, when every other service that has an impact on children’s social care is being cut and completely depleted? Social work is a holistic profession; it relies on other services that are being stripped away, day by day, under this Government.
Mr Sheerman
The Minister gets out and about in the country, but has he been to children’s services in places such as Kirklees? In my time in Parliament, I have never seen such a crisis. We are in a ghastly situation where, because there is no money in local authorities—largely because of the time, money and resource that they are putting into care—money and resource is being taken away from our children, from child protection and from the fostering service. That is the truth, whether we like it or not.
Nick Gibb
The truth is that we have made £200 billion available for local authorities in the period up to 2019-20, as part of a balanced approach to public spending, to ensure we have a strong and stable economy that is delivering the lowest level of unemployment for more than 40 years. The Government have had to take difficult decisions in the last seven or eight years, but it is an important area of Government spending.
Our ambitions for children and young people, when they are being looked after and afterwards, are the same as for any other child. We want them to fulfil their educational potential, have good health and wellbeing, build and maintain lasting relationships, and participate positively in society. Of looked-after children, 74% are in foster care. Fostering provides stability, a safe and loving home and an alternative family environment. Children and young people in foster care have made it clear that they want to feel part of a family and have a normal life.
One of the essential messages from the “Foster Care in England” report is that foster care is working for many vulnerable children and young people. That needs to be celebrated. Research tells us that, for many children in foster care, the experience can be positive and life-changing. Coram’s “Our Lives, Our Care” survey found that, in 2017, 83% of 11 to 18-year-olds living in care thought their life was getting better. Research from the Rees Centre showed that stable, high-quality care can be a protective factor educationally, and children and young people in foster care perform better at school than looked-after children as a whole, and better than children in need.
The “Foster Care in England” report draws on the evidence of children and young people, foster-carers, social workers, fostering organisations and academics to set out a broad programme of possible improvements. It is clear from both reports, and from today’s debate, that we could and should do more to improve children’s experiences of foster care.
Nick Gibb
Young people were consulted, but I will get back to the hon. Gentleman on the precise number involved in the consultation.
Although there are areas of disagreement, there are three common themes. First, we need to ensure that enough high-quality fostering placements are available in the right place at the right time to meet the needs of children in the care system. Secondly, we need to ensure that foster-parents receive the support and respect they need and deserve for the incredibly valuable role that they play in looking after children in care. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we need to ensure that children and young people are listened to, that their wishes and feelings are taken into account, and that they are involved in decisions about their lives.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central also raised the issue of adoption. Stability and permanence are transformative for many children. For some children, long-term foster care will be the right choice. It is one of a range of options that includes adoptions and special guardianship, as he mentioned. The independent review asks the Department to put permanence at the heart of policy making, and we agree that that is the right thing to do.
Foster-parents play a vital role in supporting some of our most vulnerable children. They are essential for achieving high ambitions for the children in their care. They are uniquely placed to recognise the child’s needs and to respond to them appropriately. However, some foster-parents feel frustrated by the treatment they receive. We need to ensure that all foster-parents receive the support and respect they need for the incredibly valuable role that they play. The two fostering reports are clear that foster-parents are the experts in the children they look after and should be recognised as such. The statutory framework sets out that foster-parents should be listened to and included in decisions about the child’s care, but the evidence suggests that that does not always happen.
Mrs Lewell-Buck
I am not sure whether I heard the Minister correctly. Did he say that the Department puts permanence at the heart of everything it does? Does that not deny the wishes of children who want to go into residential care, long-term foster care or other forms of care? Why is the Department riding roughshod over the views of some children?
Nick Gibb
That is not what I implied by what I said, which was that permanence was at the heart of policy making. Of course the views and rights of children are paramount in all the decisions that are made. The best interests of children will drive decision making for them.
We need to consider how foster-parents can be better supported so that they feel valued and empowered to parent the children in their care. For example, the independent review highlighted the need for greater delegation of day-to-day decision making. We will explore with the sector how we can improve guidance and practice.
Government policy is very clear that no foster-parent should be out of pocket because they are looking after a child. The Government set the national minimum allowance, and we are clear that we expect all foster-parents to receive at least that sum, but we need a better understanding of the national picture on remuneration. We will consider financial support alongside the wider package of support to ensure that foster-parents can continue to fulfil their valuable role.
The hon. Member for Sefton Central mentioned the professionalism and expertise of foster-parents. He is right that they should be treated professionally. He also mentioned the proposal for a national register of foster-carers. We are considering that recommendation. It is clear from both reports that more strategic sufficiency planning would help to secure better matches for more children. Some form of register may help to improve referrals, because it is hard to get a real-time picture of foster-parent availability. It is essential that we do not lose the insight from social workers in individual cases or the personal interactions in making placements.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden raised the faith background of foster-parents. The Government welcome anyone of any religion or ethnicity who comes forward to foster, provided that they meet the needs of children. However, she is right to raise the issue. We have heard and noted her concerns about faith literacy. We will consider how training can be improved for social workers and foster-parents in faith literacy and other matters. There are a number of misunderstandings about fostering in general, including about who can foster. The Government’s response to the reports will provide an opportunity to address the issues that she rightly raises.
The hon. Member for Wigan raised the issue of foster-carers’ 30 hours of free childcare. The child’s best interests have to be the paramount consideration. We are working with local authorities, and where childcare is in the child’s best interests, we expect it to continue even if they move to another placement. The hon. Lady also expressed concern about the high number of placements out of area. At the end of March 2017, 60% of children in foster care had been placed inside their council boundary and 80% within 20 miles of their home. However, the national availability of foster-carers does not always reflect local need. Local authorities have a duty to ensure the availability of foster-parents. The Government are working out how we can support councils to fulfil that duty.
The hon. Lady also raised the important issue of the voice of the child. The survey of children and young people by the Children’s Commissioner heard how important it was for young people to feel listened to and to have a greater role in decisions made about their lives. Several said that they felt that they did not have a say in anything and found that foster-carers and social workers dominated decisions about their placement. It is clear that the whole system needs to be better at listening and responding to the views of children and young people in its care. We are determined that children and young people have opportunities to contribute to the development of the Government’s response to the two fostering reports, so they are being supported by external organisations who have the necessary expertise.
I am grateful to the hon. Member for Sefton Central for this opportunity to continue debating the important issue of fostering. The independent review, the Education Committee and the many organisations and people who have contributed to the reports have given us a real opportunity to develop policy further and make a sustained change to the outcomes of children in care. The points raised today continue our important debate, and I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions. As we develop our future work programme on fostering, we will continue to listen and work with all those who have an interest—not least young people themselves.
Chris Law
I am listening to the Minister with great interest, but I am astonished and appalled that he has not once mentioned the work done in Scotland, which has devolved responsibility in the matter. Is this not a perfect opportunity for Administrations to learn from each other’s experiences and draw the best conclusions? He has not even referred to the Scottish Government’s good works that I spoke about or the reports that we have been doing north of the border. Judging from what he says, the idea of our working as a family of nations has clearly been totally disregarded. Will he please address it now and say that he will consider it and take it forward?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman raises an important point. We will do just that.
Let me make a final point in the time available. The Government’s priority is that any changes must make a positive difference to the lives of the 53,000 children and young people who live in foster-families, and to the lives of foster-parents. We are committed to ensuring that vulnerable children have access to the best possible care to help them to thrive and prepare them for adulthood.
British Sign Language: National Curriculum
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Austin. I congratulate the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist) on securing this debate and on a powerful opening speech, and I add my congratulations to both the filmmakers and Maisie Sly on their work and their success at the Oscars last night with their film, “The Silent Child”. Although I have not yet seen the film, it raises important questions about the isolation that can arise from being born deaf in a hearing world, and highlights the difference that can be brought about by learning to communicate effectively.
The Government have recognised British Sign Language as a language in its own right since 2003. British Sign Language is a vital method of communication for many people and the first or preferred language for an estimated 70,000 deaf people in the United Kingdom. Of course, many hearing people—such as the hon. Members for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) and for York Central (Rachael Maskell)—choose to learn BSL in order to communicate more effectively with hearing-impaired people in everyday life. I very much enjoyed the speech by the hon. Member for York Central.
The Government understand, as I do, the passion that many organisations and individuals have for including BSL in the national curriculum. The reformed national curriculum, introduced in 2014, places a much greater focus on the core academic knowledge that pupils need for success in an ever more globalised world. That core body of knowledge is not expected to change significantly over time, but the national curriculum is just one element in the wide-ranging education of every child that makes up the broader school curriculum.
When we reformed the national curriculum, our expert panel made a clear distinction between the national curriculum and the school curriculum. We wanted the national curriculum to be kept within a certain size, to enable schools to develop a broader school curriculum. There is enough time and space in the school day, in each week, term and year, to expand beyond the specifications found in the national curriculum.
We are unapologetically ambitious for every child, no matter what their background, prior attainment or educational needs. The best possible education for adult life in modern Britain is one that equips children and young people with the knowledge they need to succeed. Our reforms have led to the attainment gap between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their more advantaged peers closing by an astonishing 10% since 2011.
To do that, we ensured that the national curriculum was rigorous. We looked at curriculum design in the most successful education jurisdictions across the globe and benchmarked what our children are expected to learn at different stages. While setting stretching expectations for the knowledge and skills that each child should be taught, we have given teachers more professional freedom to choose how to teach that material and how to assess it in the classroom. We will continue to increase support for teachers to deliver this stretching curriculum effectively, including by encouraging the greater use of evidence-based teaching methods to raise standards and cut unnecessary workload.
We have a responsibility to ensure that we support teachers, reduce workload and allow our reforms to bed in and take effect. Making changes to the curriculum causes increased workload for teachers, and now that we have a high-quality curriculum, with stretching and rigorous assessments to match, we want to minimise further change. The Department’s programme of work on teacher workload aims to enable teachers to focus on teaching and their own professional development.
While we believe that BSL is an important and worth- while area of study, we do not have plans to change the national curriculum for schools to make teaching BSL mandatory for maintained schools—particularly as two thirds of secondary schools now have academy status and are not obliged to follow any part of the national curriculum, whether we revise it or not. Schools may choose to offer BSL as part of their wider school curriculum, or as part of a varied programme of extra-curricular activities. Some may also offer accredited BSL qualifications to support pupils’ achievements in the language.
For people who wish to develop their ability to communicate effectively with those with a hearing impairment in everyday situations, level 1 and 2 qualifications, which already exist, have the greatest take-up. The level 1 and 2 qualifications currently offered by the Institute of British Sign Language, Signature and ABC Awards enable people to engage in routine conversations about real life and daily experiences and to develop a wider grasp of grammar to deal with non-routine exchanges. For those who wish, there are opportunities to develop practices in BSL further into level 3 and 4, and even level 6, which is equivalent to a degree. Individuals who take those qualifications might wish to enter a career working professionally with deaf people, such as in interpreting or teaching.
Laura Smith
I am quite upset about the tone of the Minister’s message, after a debate in which we thought we were getting a bit of movement. As a former teacher, I put on the record that I completely disagree with his statements regarding teachers feeling supported at the present time. I think it is very sad—I saw people in the Public Gallery shaking their heads—that the Government are once again prioritising exams and results in the curriculum, rather than inclusion and providing a diverse curriculum that benefits our entire society. That is a shame.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Lady interrupted my speech before I had concluded my arguments; she should hold on and be patient a little longer.
This week, we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, which celebrates the success of apprenticeships across England. BSL is now an alternative to a level 1 and level 2 qualification in English when undertaking an apprenticeship, providing the opportunity for apprentices to achieve a qualification in their primary language. That enables those who use BSL to complete their apprenticeship without having to achieve another English qualification, such as a GCSE or functional skills qualification.
My hon. Friend the Member for Waveney (Peter Aldous) referred to GCSEs in Urdu and other community languages, and the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick) referred to teaching Russian and Japanese. Hon. Members will be aware that we had a very real struggle with the awarding organisations—the exam boards— to ensure that those small-cohort GCSEs continued. Ultimately, we are dependent on the exam boards accredited by Ofqual to offer GCSEs being willing to offer any further GCSEs.
Jim Fitzpatrick
Before the Minister moves on from his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Crewe and Nantwich (Laura Smith), will he give further clarification? Will he refer later to the point that has been raised by a number of colleagues, which is that the Department for Education has already piloted a BSL GCSE that is ready to go? Why is the Department not in a position, not able or not willing to validate that for schools that want to teach the qualification in such a way rather than at NVQ level?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman pre-empts what I was about to say. He makes an important point and I will address it. Hon. Members should be aware that, of the four GCSE exam boards operating in this country, OCR, one of the major ones, recently stopped providing any language GCSEs at all, including French, Spanish and German, which are not small-cohort GCSEs. The hon. Gentleman mentions the GCSE that has been prepared by the awarding organisation Signature. We have seen that draft specification, and it has been tested in some schools. However, an established and rigorous process is in place to accredit GCSEs, and the specification has not been through that process.
A number of further steps are required to develop the specification into a GCSE, including developing broad and deep subject content by working with subject experts. It would also need to meet Ofqual’s assessment criteria and be accredited by Ofqual. Signature, were it to be the awarding organisation that offered the qualification, would need to be accredited by Ofqual as a GCSE-awarding organisation and be subject to its regulatory oversight. It is not a simple process of saying the qualification is already done and dusted and ready to run. A huge number of steps have to be gone through.
I presided over the reforms to GCSEs since 2010. The new GCSEs in English and maths were ready for first teaching in September 2015, and the next set were ready for first teaching in 2016, with exams in June 2018. These GCSE reform and accreditation processes take a long time. The accreditation is not a simple thing to acquire from Ofqual, which often sends the specifications back for further drafting before it is prepared to accredit them.
Jim Fitzpatrick
I am grateful to the Minister for that further clarification. Given the hoops that have to be jumped through to actually get to a position in which a GCSE will be available, is the Department in a position to say that it supports the additional efforts to get to that point, or is it not the Department’s role to encourage that? Where do we go from here to actually get to a position whereby there will be a BSL GCSE validated by the Department that can be taught and examined in schools?
Nick Gibb
We have been clear that we want schools to have a period of stability, so we have said that there are to be no new GCSEs or A-levels for a period of time. That is not to say that in the longer term we will not consider new subjects for GCSEs. However, it is important, after the hugely extensive reforms to GCSEs and A-levels, that schools have a period of stability. I have a responsibility to schools to enable them to have that period of stability, which they have asked us for.
Emma Hardy
Does the Minister agree that what we examine shows what we value as a society? What the Minister values is clear to anybody who wishes to read it in the changes he introduced to GCSEs. What message does it send out to people if we will not even consider having BSL as a GCSE? What does that say about what we value as a society?
Nick Gibb
I would argue that not everything that is taught in schools needs to be a GCSE. We allow plenty of valuable qualifications to be taught in schools under the section 96 list that have valuable subject content but are not sufficiently broad to qualify as a GCSE. However, we none the less encourage their teaching in our schools. As I have said, we value BSL as a subject, and we encourage schools that wish to do so to teach it. Schools are permitted to teach a number of qualifications at levels 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Rachael Maskell
I am really struggling. For the Minister and myself, English is our first language, and we have the right to sit a qualification at GCSE level in our first language. BSL could be the first language of the hearing impaired, yet we deny those people that opportunity, so a real inequality has therefore been built into the system. This is not about adding another subject to the curriculum but attaining equality for people who are hearing impaired.
Nick Gibb
As I said, we value BSL. However, a huge number of steps would have to be gone through for the BSL qualification to be accredited as a GCSE. Having been through it, I can say that it is not a simple process to get qualifications accredited. There are existing level 2 qualifications; GCSEs are level 2. There are existing BSL qualifications of high quality available that can be taught in schools. BSL is not a GCSE subject, but as I said, many subjects taught in schools are not GCSE subjects and none the less are valued by schools and by those who take the qualifications.
We recognise that some who wish to take a qualification in BSL will do so to communicate with a family member or friend. Indeed, many of those in most need are hearing parents of deaf children. We understand that early access to language is essential to help children to learn and thrive and it is vital that families have the support that they need to communicate with their children. The Department has provided funding for the development of a support guide to help parents of deaf children. Families or carers may also be eligible for support to learn sign language. The Department has provided funding for the I-Sign project to develop a family sign language programme, which is available online.
We believe that all young people should be helped to achieve their potential, regardless of their background or circumstances. More than 21,000 children with a hearing impairment are supported at school. We are proud that 93% of hearing-impaired children are supported to attend a mainstream school. Pupils who use sign language are generally provided with support at school through specialist teaching assistants and specialist teachers of the deaf. However, we do not prescribe how schools should support pupils with a hearing impairment.
We have made it clear in the special educational needs and disability code of practice that all schools must use their best endeavours to make suitable provision available for all children of school age with special educational needs or disabilities. The reasonable adjustments duty for schools and local authorities includes a duty to provide supporting aids and services for disabled pupils. That could include things such as radio aids or communication support workers. In addition, the local authority can support parents and children in developing the knowledge that they need to communicate effectively.
When the time comes for pupils to take examinations, schools and colleges are responsible for ensuring that reasonable adjustments are made to make exams more accessible for pupils. Common arrangements include extra time and the use of scribes and readers and of word processors. More deaf children than ever are leaving school with good GCSEs, and we want them to continue to aspire to reach their full potential. Statistics show that attainment in English and maths for that group has been improving in recent years. The proportion of children with a hearing impairment achieving a standard pass—at grade 4 or above—in English and maths GCSE has increased by 6 percentage points compared with passes at C or above in 2011. We are very proud of that improvement.
Laura Smith
I am not interrupting; I just want to make a point to the Minister. It is wonderful that deaf people and deaf children are exceeding what has been achieved previously and doing well in terms of their attainment, but these are not equal opportunities. Surely it is the Government’s responsibility to deliver equal opportunities for all children and all people in our society. I just do not feel that the Government are taking responsibility for this issue. We have heard that it is a matter for teachers and schools and can be a matter for local government. What about the Government?
Nick Gibb
I have explained the position as regards a GCSE. As I said, two thirds of schools have academy status, which means that they are not obliged to follow the national curriculum. That trend is increasing—the number of schools acquiring academy status increases every month—and, as I said, such schools are not obliged to follow the national curriculum.
I have also set out the very real practical issues. Any new GCSE has to go through an accreditation process. It has to be provided by an awarding organisation that is itself accredited as a GCSE provider. As I pointed out, we have had a real struggle with the awarding organisations on providing language GCSEs, particularly in the community languages. We had a huge battle with them and ended up having to move a whole raft of community language GCSEs from OCR to the other awarding organisations. Ultimately, we can only provide GCSEs that the exam boards, which are independent, wish to provide. As I said, a draft specification has been provided by Signature, but it would have to go through the process of having the GCSE accredited by Ofqual and would itself have to be accredited by Ofqual as a GCSE provider. Those are the issues confronting any Minister in the Department for Education as regards new GCSEs, because the system in the legislation passed in the House to ensure that we offer GCSEs that are on a par with one another and hold their standard over time has led to our deciding to have a very powerful regulator, which is absolutely right to ensure that we maintain standards. That process has to be gone through by anyone who wishes to introduce a new GCSE.
In addition, we want schools to have a period of stability. This is not the only request for a new GCSE; there are requests for others. Schools have asked for a period of stability. There will be stability for a short period, and after that we can consider whether new GCSEs or A-levels can be introduced.
Emma Hardy
I accept that not all schools have to teach the national curriculum, but what exists is not actually a national curriculum; it is an examination curriculum. The school curriculum is built around the examinations that children take. I am sorry, but I disagree with the point that there is a wider school curriculum. There is not. Schools long for there to be a wider school curriculum, but the reforms made by this Government have squeezed things out and narrowed it down very tightly to being based solely on examinations. If we do not give British Sign Language an examination, it just will not be counted and will not be taught.
Nick Gibb
There are examinations in BSL, produced by Signature and ABC, that are for level 1 or 2 qualifications. Exams exist in BSL. The qualifications are on the section 96 list and can be taught in schools, so they do exist.
I do not accept the caricature of our school system described by the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Emma Hardy). The school curriculum is very wide. The most successful schools in the state sector have a very wide curriculum and they offer plenty of sport, music and art as part of that. Art and music are compulsory to the end of key stage 3, and the schools that are most successful academically, in the exams that the hon. Lady dismisses, are the schools that also have a very broad and balanced curriculum beyond GCSE.
We made it very clear in our reforms to the national curriculum that there was to be a distinction between the national curriculum, which focuses on the core academic subjects, and the school curriculum, which goes beyond those subjects and includes sport and a whole raft of artistic and other subjects, which are hugely important. I am referring to subjects such as sex and relationships education, PSHE—personal, social, health and economic education—and citizenship and so on, which are hugely important in developing a rounded person.
Rachael Maskell
I am struggling to understand why the Minister cannot ask an awarding body to go away and do the work to ensure that a GCSE in British Sign Language can come on stream and then be integrated in the school system, by which time the schools will clearly have had their period of stability and then will be able to teach BSL as part of their core curriculum.
Nick Gibb
I am always very happy to have meetings and discussions on these issues. I continue to have discussions with people who want to introduce a whole raft of new subject content into our schools, and I am very happy to be having a meeting next week with my hon. Friend the Member for Waveney to discuss this very issue, so we always keep these issues under review. Today I have set out the real challenges facing the school system in this country and I have put on the record in an open and transparent way where we are on the issue of new GCSEs coming into our system. That is what I have sought to do today, and on that basis I conclude my remarks.
A-Level Provision: Knowsley Metropolitan Borough
Nick Gibb Excerpts(7 years, 11 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Thank you, Mr Hollobone. It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood (Maria Eagle) on securing this debate.
I have had a long-standing interest in educational standards in Knowsley and have had a number of meetings about A-level provision in the borough over the years since 2016. It saddened and concerned me when the decision was taken that Halewood Academy should close its A-level provision. I will come to why that decision was taken by the academy, but we sought to reintroduce A-level provision to Knowsley. I share the ambition of the hon. Lady and other Members present to ensure sixth-form or college provision within the borough where students may study A-levels.
I also share hon. Members’ concerns about general educational standards in Knowsley, which incidentally predate the Gove reforms and academisation. In fact, academisation and the major reforms introduced since 2010 are a response to poor academic standards in Knowsley and other parts of the country. That is why we are so determined to raise standards across the borough. Knowsley is too often on the list of the lowest performing education authorities that I pore over when the results come out. The phonics results, for example, show that in Knowsley primary schools, 78% of six-year-olds reach the expected standards, compared with 81% nationally and significantly higher rates still in parts of the country such Newham, which also serves many disadvantaged areas but considerably exceeds the national average.
The Government’s ambition is to ensure that all pupils, wherever they live and regardless of their background, receive an education that takes them as far as their talents will allow. Standards have risen in our schools since 2010. As a result of the reforms referred to by the hon. Member for Wythenshawe and Sale East (Mike Kane), 1.9 million more pupils are now in good or outstanding schools, the proportion of pupils studying two or more science GCSEs has risen from 63% to 91%, and the proportion of pupils taking the EBacc suite of GCSEs has risen from just over one fifth to nearly two fifths. At the same time, the attainment gap index has shrunk by 10% since 2011 and more pupils are now being entered for science and maths A-levels than ever before.
The Government have embarked on an ambitious reform of A-levels to ensure that our young people are prepared for the demands of this country’s world-leading universities. The Government are determined to extend those opportunities to all parts of the country, and the Department has been working closely, as I have personally, with Knowsley Metropolitan Borough Council to ensure that young people in Knowsley receive the high-quality education that they deserve and that they benefit from the Government’s reforms.
In April 2016, following a wide consultation, the principal of Halewood Academy announced that it would stop admitting pupils for A-level study from September 2016. There was low demand for A-levels at the school, with only 58 pupils studying for A-levels at the time of the announcement, and the school was struggling to be financially viable, as well as delivering poor-quality education. Its position would likely have continued to deteriorate because of the declining number of 16 to 18-year-olds in Knowsley, which is set to reduce by 17% between 2015 and 2020. As a result, pupils in Knowsley deciding to pursue A-levels would need to travel to nearby boroughs, where there is a breadth of choice at colleges with established reputations for high-quality provision, such as Carmel College in St Helens, which the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood referred to, and Riverside College in Halton.
The need for A-level provision in Knowsley was kept under review by the local regional schools commissioner, and in June 2016 it was agreed that the RSC would work with the Educational Skills Funding Agency, the local authority and other local schools and colleges to improve post-16 provision. That would take into account the recommendations of the area review of post-16 provision in the Liverpool city region taking place at the time. Those reviews are designed to avoid the very gaps in provision that the hon. Lady is concerned about.
Along with the ESFA, the local authority’s executive director for children has been in discussion with Knowsley Community College, local headteachers, local businesses and outstanding local schools located outside the borough. The Department has continued to work with the borough’s director of children’s services to keep the demand for A-level provision under review. Following the area review recommendation for St Helen’s College and Knowsley Community College to merge, the Department ensured that A-level provision will be delivered at the Knowsley campus from September this year. The merged college’s published 2018-19 prospectus sets out a comprehensive A-level offer, with 21 different A-levels available. As the hon. Lady correctly stated, to date it has received 113 A-level applications for the 2018-19 academic year, and it is reviewing these in order to make an appropriate offer to each candidate, as in some cases pupils will undertake both A-Levels and vocational options, as is the case in many sixth-form colleges.
As well as ensuring future A-level provision in Knowsley, the Department has taken steps to address the historical educational under-achievement that has blighted the life chances of pupils in parts of Knowsley for too long. There have been—and still are—long-standing issues with the quality of secondary provision. That is why we are working closely with a number of organisations, including the Knowsley education commission, the Institute for Teaching, The Brilliant Club, Teach First and the local authority, to ensure an improvement in the quality of education in the borough. Knowsley Council has commissioned the development and implementation of Knowsley Better Together, which is a wider local plan to improve opportunities for pupils to study A-levels in Knowsley. This recognises the need for future A-level provision and, importantly, the need to improve schools’ performance at key stage 4 to prepare students for the demands of the new rigorous A-levels.
A range of targeted interventions have been put in place for academies in Knowsley, including the regional schools commissioner meeting the multi-academy trust responsible for these academies during the first term of this academic year, to ensure that rapid and sustained improvements are made. The Department will continue to monitor progress and work closely with the academies in Knowsley to address the quality of education at secondary level. I am very happy to make a commitment to meet regularly all the Members in the area who are concerned, together with the local authority and the regional schools commissioner, to maintain progress both in the secondary schools and in the primary schools in the borough. I have been doing this in a number of other local authority areas where I am concerned about standards. We can go school by school, including primary schools, to monitor what is happening and ensure that progress continues to be made.
I am very grateful to the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood for highlighting these issues. The Department will continue to work with the borough’s director of children’s services and other appropriate parties to ensure that A-level provision in Knowsley meets the demands and needs of its pupils. Significant work is under way to raise standards in Knowsley’s schools and to prepare pupils for A-level study. I will work with the hon. Lady and keep these issues under review.
The hon. Lady raised the issue of opportunity areas. There are 12 to begin with, and we want to ensure that they represent different parts of the country—rural, coastal, north-west and so no. Given that there is an opportunity area in Oldham, it was felt that Knowsley would not be an opportunity area at this point. We will learn from what has been happening in those opportunity areas, so that we can apply the lessons learnt to other parts of the country that are low down on the Social Mobility Commission’s index in due course.
On that note, I hope that the hon. Member for Garston and Halewood is happy with my response. I repeat: I am very happy and keen to work with right hon. and hon. Members to make sure that we are monitoring and doing everything we can to ensure that standards at both secondary and primary schools in the Knowsley area and the borough continue to rise, so that there is more possibility of 11-to-16 schools having sixth-form provision in future.
Statutory PHSE Education
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Robertson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Teresa Pearce) on securing this debate and on her powerful speech.
The teaching of high-quality personal, social, health and economic education is a very important issue, and I welcome the opportunity to set out the Government’s position on it. We believe that the education system must prepare all pupils for life in modern Britain. Schools have a key role to play in developing rounded young people who can navigate the challenges of the modern world with confidence. They should teach pupils a foundation of knowledge to use and apply in a variety of contexts, allowing them to thrive and develop and preparing them to become fully engaged citizens and contributors to society.
The context of this debate is that standards in our primary and secondary schools are rising. Some 1.9 million more pupils are in good or outstanding schools today than in 2010. The attainment gap between children from poorer and wealthier backgrounds has closed by 10% since 2011. The proportion of pupils taking at least two science GCSEs has risen from 63% in 2010 to 91%. Children’s reading is improving. I agree with one point made by the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson): reading literature introduces children to a range of emotional and life experiences.
We also know that high-quality PSHE and age-appropriate relationships and sex education are important in contributing to keeping pupils safe and healthy. Technological advances have brought great opportunities, but young people today also face unprecedented pressures as they navigate the digital world. Effectively planned PSHE programmes can provide young people with the necessary knowledge to manage risk and build understanding of dangers such as drug and alcohol misuse and cyber-bullying, as well as supporting them to enhance their own wellbeing. Schools are encouraged to deliver PSHE as an integral part of their duty to provide a broad and balanced curriculum. Many schools already use their curriculum and school day to support pupil wellbeing, for example through their PSHE curriculum and through a range of extracurricular activities.
We know that these subjects are important, but they also need improving, which is why we have committed to a programme of reform. The Children and Social Work Act 2017 requires the Secretary of State for Education to place a statutory duty on all primary schools to teach relationships education and on all secondary schools to teach relationships and sex education, or RSE. The Act also gave the Government the power to make PSHE a compulsory subject to be taught in all state-funded schools, subject to further careful consideration.
As part of our reforms, in March 2017 we set out in our policy statement key areas that we anticipate that relationships education, and relationships and sex education will focus on, for example, teaching pupils about different types of relationships, and about unhealthy and healthy relationships, both on and offline. That is likely to include consideration of issues such as boundaries, appropriate behaviour, consent and respect for others, which were powerfully raised by the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion). She is right about protecting young children, and I agree that relationships education at primary school should equip pupils with age-appropriate knowledge, so that they can keep themselves safe.
Teaching about friendships and family relationships in primary school forms the building blocks for RSE in secondary school. Pupils should understand their own and others’ relationships, as well as the impact that relationships have on mental health and wellbeing. This knowledge will support pupils in making informed decisions.
As part of our reforms, we are also working closely with experts to determine what PSHE should look like in the context of statutory relationships education and RSE, and we will consider age-appropriate content and guidance. PSHE is currently a non-statutory programme in maintained schools. Schools are encouraged to teach PSHE, and this is outlined in the introduction to the national curriculum framework document, which was published in 2013. PSHE can encompass many areas of study, and in considering whether it should be made compulsory, it is important to balance the need for schools to have freedom and flexibility to tailor their local PSHE programme to reflect the needs of their pupils.
As set out in the policy statement, we could expect mandatory PSHE to cover several broad pillars, for example healthy bodies and lifestyles, including issues such as cancer, which was raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous). PSHE could also include issues such as keeping safe, puberty, drugs and alcohol education, healthy minds, including emotional wellbeing and mental health, economic wellbeing and financial capability, and, lastly, careers education, preparation for the workplace and making a positive contribution to society.
Many schools already teach PSHE well, and we want to understand how they do that in a way that complements their broader curriculum. In some primary and secondary schools, sex education is also taught as part of PSHE. The teacher voice omnibus survey report, published in October last year, explored schools’ approaches to PSHE and SRE. The vast majority of senior teachers—85%—said that their school taught both PSHE and SRE. Most of the others—8%—said that they taught PSHE only.
Schools are free to use PSHE to build, where appropriate, on the statutory content already outlined in the national curriculum, the basic school curriculum and in statutory guidance on areas such as drug education, financial education, SRE, and the importance of physical activity and diet for a healthy lifestyle. Teachers have the freedom to address the areas that are most relevant to their pupils, drawing on evidence, good practice and advice from professional organisations. We encourage organisations to develop materials for schools in their area of expertise.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire and others, including the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead and my hon. Friends the Members for Colchester (Will Quince) and for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson), raised the issue of first aid. There is nothing more important than keeping children and staff safe, which is why we have put in place a duty requiring schools to support all children’s medical needs, and we have set up a scheme so that schools can buy defibrillators at a reduced price. Schools can teach emergency first aid and life-saving skills in a variety of ways, for example through the wider curriculum, through assemblies or through PSHE, and we have given headteachers more freedom than ever before to shape the curriculum to the needs of their pupils.
Nick Gibb
I will not give way to the hon. Lady, if she does not mind; I want to cover other people’s contributions.
We also encourage teachers to draw upon high-quality resources in the classroom, including guidance on first aid and emergencies from the British Red Cross, St John Ambulance and the British Heart Foundation. The British Heart Foundation provides free teaching kits to secondary schools on CPR. The kits are reusable and no trained instructor is required. Similarly, St John Ambulance and the British Red Cross provide free resources to schools on first aid, and they can also provide specialist trainers to teach first aid in schools.
In the last few years, there have been calls from many organisations, including parent bodies, to make PSHE a compulsory subject, and those calls have been echoed in reports from Committees in the House. We have made it clear that we want to provide all young people with a curriculum that ensures they are prepared for adult life in modern Britain. Good schools establish an ethos, a behaviour policy and a curriculum that teach children about the importance of healthy, respectful and caring relationships. They recognise that healthy, resilient and confident pupils are better placed to achieve academically and to go on to be successful adults.
An Ofsted report in 2013 concluded that PSHE was good or better in 60% of the schools inspected for the report. However, as the hon. Member for Rotherham said in her contribution, PSHE required improvement or was inadequate in the other 40%. The report also found that sex and relationship education required improvement in over a third of schools.
I am committed to ensuring that our programme of reform is underpinned by evidence. That is why we are currently conducting a thorough engagement process on the scope and content of relationships education, relationships and sex education, and PSHE, involving a wide range of interested stakeholders. The Department is engaging with schools and teachers, parents and pupils, experts in safeguarding and child wellbeing—
Nick Gibb
I will not give way to the hon. Lady; I have literally one minute left.
The Department is also engaging with subject experts, voluntary organisations and other interested parties, including other Departments and public sector bodies. There are too many to list, but examples include the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, Barnardo’s, the PSHE Association, the Sex Education Forum, faith organisations, secular groups, Stonewall, the Terrence Higgins Trust, Young Enterprise, parent bodies, teaching unions, academics in this field and young people.
To ensure that we retain a focus on what is deliverable in schools, the Secretary of State has asked Ian Bauckham to advise on this piece of work. Ian is chief executive officer of the Tenax Schools Trust and executive headteacher of Bennett Memorial Diocesan School in Kent. He brings over 30 years of teaching experience, including 13 as a headteacher, to this piece of work. He is working with officials to ensure that we really understand how to support schools in delivering high-quality provision.
As the hon. Member for Erith and Thamesmead knows, to complement the engagement process, the Department is running a call for evidence, which closes on 12 February. It aims to gather views from as wide a range of bodies as possible. The responses so far to that call have been very encouraging, including from a large number of young people and parents. In the next steps, we will consider carefully those responses and other views collected through the engagement process, to determine sensitive and age-appropriate content, including the future status of PSHE, which I know Members here are awaiting patiently. We are also aware that there is a huge interest in this matter in all parts of this House. To answer the question of the hon. Member for South Shields—she has been bursting to ask it again—the regulations and guidance will be subject to a full public consultation later this year.
The commitment we have made to making relationships education and RSE compulsory in all schools, and to considering the case for doing the same for PSHE, will further ensure that pupils’ wellbeing continues to be supported in our schools. I hope that reassures hon. Members of the Government’s commitment to this vital agenda for children and young people.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years ago)
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Helen Whately (Faversham and Mid Kent) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
In 2013, we published a new primary school curriculum that significantly raised expectations in both English and maths, and promoted the use of phonics in the teaching of reading. In 2012, we introduced the phonics check for six-year-olds. The results of the 2016 Progress in International Reading Literacy Study—PIRLS—showed nine-year-olds in England achieving the highest ever scores, moving England up from joint 10th to joint eighth out of 50 countries worldwide.
Michael Tomlinson
I am grateful for that answer. Thanks to some tough decisions by the Minister and sheer hard work by our teachers, reading standards are the highest for a generation. Sadly, disadvantaged children still lag behind, so what are he and the Department doing to address that issue?
Nick Gibb
The PIRLS survey links strong performance in the phonics check with high scores in the PIRLS text. Particularly pleasing is the fact that our rise in the global rankings has been driven by improved performance by low-ability pupils. We are now focusing on strengthening the maths, reading and writing elements of the early years foundation stage to help prepare children for year 1 of primary school. The attainment gap has closed by 10.5% at key stage 2, but we want to go further and close the gap altogether.
Helen Whately
I do regular phonics practice with my children, which, as the Minister has said, is helping children get better at reading. However, there does not seem to the same focus on practising core maths skills in primary schools. What is my right hon. Friend doing to improve maths in primary schools, especially the learning of times tables?
Nick Gibb
I thank my hon. Friend for making sure her children learn their phonics, and she is right to emphasise the importance of children knowing their times tables by heart, up to 12 times 12 by the end of year 4 at the latest. That is why we are introducing an on-screen multiplication tables check for all pupils at the end of year 4 of primary school. The prize is to have all pupils leaving primary school fluent in their multiplication tables, ensuring they have the essential foundation for success in mathematics at secondary school.
Melanie Onn (Great Grimsby) (Lab)
The reality is that children can improve their literacy and numeracy only if they are in school. In North East Lincolnshire, children lost nearly 3,500 days of education last year alone. What will the Government do to make sure that another 825 children in my borough next year do not miss out on their education through exclusion?
Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister will have seen independent research by the Education Policy Institute showing that Harrow is the best place to send children to school, so perhaps he will come to my borough to see what is working in terms of literacy and numeracy. If he does, he will meet headteachers who are very concerned about cuts to their budgets as a result of a lack of sufficient funding from the Government. What is he going to do about that?
Nick Gibb
I congratulate all the teachers and pupils in Harrow on their receiving that accolade from the Education Policy Institute. We are spending record amounts on school funding—some £41 billion this year. No Government have spent that level of funding on schools in our history. That will rise further to £42.4 billion next year.
Mark Pawsey (Rugby) (Con)
The Minister will know that only 1% of children who move from mainstream to alternative provision during their GCSE years achieve good GCSEs, including in English and maths. What more can be done to support this important group of students?
Mr Speaker
I do not want the House to get the wrong idea; we seem to have gone from Harrow to Rugby, but that does not mean that others cannot take part. We are focused predominantly on the state sector.
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend the Member for Rugby (Mark Pawsey) raises an important point. The standards of achievement in the alternative provision sector are not high enough. The children who attend those schools are vulnerable and we want to do more to improve the situation, which is why we have recently commissioned new research into the relationship between schools and alternative provision to find out what more we can do to raise standards.
Several hon. Members rose—
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
The situation in Wirral is that we have fine teachers but insufficient Government resources. When it comes to literacy and numeracy, I want all the schools in my constituency to be good or outstanding. In the case of one rapidly improving school, Bebington High School, an administrative delay seems to be getting in the way of teaching and learning, and there is an issue with the resources for that. Will the Minister meet me to find a way to use our leadership to stop red tape getting in the way of children’s learning?
Nick Gibb
I share the hon. Lady’s ambition. We want all schools to be good or outstanding and we want parents to be confident that their local school is a good school that will provide a very high standard of education. I am pleased that there are now 1.9 million more pupils in good or outstanding schools than there were in 2010. I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady to discuss the particular circumstances at Bebington High School.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Will the Minister join me in congratulating Greenfields Primary School in Kettering? It has just been ranked in the top 1% of schools in England for progress in reading and writing. Prior to becoming an academy in 2013, it was one of the most challenged schools in Kettering, with progress levels significantly below average.
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
Evidence from last year’s key stage 2 SATs shows that the attainment gap between children on free school meals and their peers has widened since the year before. The results for the Minister’s precious key stage 1 phonics for kids on free school meals actually went backwards last year. At least the previous Secretary of State talked the talk on social mobility. Is it not clear that the Government do not walk the walk?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman is not correct. The attainment-gap index at key stage 2 has closed by 10.5%. We have seen a significant increase in the proportion of children who achieve the expected standard in reading, writing and maths: it rose from 53% last year to 61% this year—an increase of 8 percentage points—and the SATs are significantly more demanding than they were in previous years. We are producing a cohort of primary school leavers who are far better equipped in maths and English, ready for the demands of secondary school.
Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)
Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Schools can teach about LGBT issues within the curriculum and they must comply with the Equality Act 2010. We have established a £3 million programme to prevent and address homophobic, biphobic and transphobic bullying, and we are making relationships education and relationships and sex education compulsory and engaging thoroughly with stakeholders to inform the design and content of the curriculum in those subjects, ensuring that they are both high quality and age appropriate.
Alex Norris
With the change in leadership at the Department, may I ask whether the new Secretary of State shares the commitment of his predecessor that relationship and sex education lessons must be lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender inclusive and reflect the needs of all young people?
Rosie Duffield
Can the Minister provide detail of how schools will be assessed to ensure that they are providing LGBT-inclusive relationship and sex education lessons, and what benchmark will be used to measure this?
Nick Gibb
These are the issues on which we are engaging with subject experts at the moment. We have issued a wide call for evidence from parents, pupils, teachers and young people, and we will assess that call for evidence before we issue further guidance on the matter. There will be a full debate on the regulations in this House when we draft those regulations.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
The Higher Education and Research Act 2017 gave universities a duty to provide additional support to students with special educational needs and disabilities. However, the Government provided no general guidance or any means for students to ensure that their rights are met, apart from taking the universities to court. Does the Minister agree that that is justifiable?
Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Schools have always been subject to inspection by Her Majesty’s inspectors and, from 1992, by Ofsted. Since 2010, we have simplified inspection, reducing graded judgments from 27 to just four. We have freed our best schools from routine inspection and introduced lighter-touch inspections for good schools.
Layla Moran
We face a teacher retention crisis in this country. One head in Oxford recently described to me how she and her staff felt “criminalised” after a devastating Ofsted inspection. What is the Minister doing to change the “culture of fear” caused by inspection, which his own Department’s workplace survey identified as one of the biggest burdens on teachers?
Nick Gibb
The workload challenge identified a range of drivers of high workload, including accountability and perceived pressures from Ofsted. We took steps to address that in our 2017 action plan, including through Ofsted’s commitment to reducing unnecessary workload around inspections, by dispelling myths about inspection and by training inspectors and monitoring inspection reports. The winter 2016 teacher voice omnibus survey showed that 39% of headteachers had used advice from Ofsted to change practice to reduce unnecessary workload.
Neil Coyle (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (Lab)
Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)
Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I will look into the precise issue the hon. Gentleman raises, but let me point out that we are spending record sums of money on education for ages five to 16 and beyond— £41 billion on school funding this year, rising to £42.4 billion next year and £43.5 billion the year after. We can provide those sums only if we have a strong economy providing the tax revenues to fund public services, which we would not have under a Labour Government.
Gordon Henderson (Sittingbourne and Sheppey) (Con)
My constituency has one of the highest number of children with special educational needs in Kent. Would the Minister therefore join me in welcoming the news that the Aspire free school, which will cater for 168 young people with autism spectrum disorder, is due to be built next year in my constituency? Would he also join me in congratulating local people who campaigned for many years for such a school and the Grove Park Academies trust, which has taken up the baton to deliver that school?
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Schools in the most deprived areas of Bath are losing between £25,000 and £75,000 under the new funding deal. What should be cut in those schools: teaching posts or mental health services?
Nick Gibb
No school will see a cut in funding in 2018-19 or 2019-20. Every single school in the country will see an increase in funding of at least half a per cent., and schools that have been historically underfunded in previous Labour Governments will see very significant rises in their school funding.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
My constituent Mahzia Hart was head of an outstanding multi-academy primary trust in Bath and north-east Somerset. In 2015, she resigned following bullying on social media, which resulted in false accusations that were investigated by the National College for Teaching and Leadership and which were subsequently dismissed. In January 2017, Mrs Hart took the National Union of Teachers to court for defamation and successfully won her case. Two months later, however, the NUT was able to refer Mrs Hart to the NCTL again. Will the Minister look into this case and investigate? How is it right that teachers’ lives can be made a misery by repeated malicious referrals to the NCTL, particularly by those who have a vested interest?
Andrea Jenkyns (Morley and Outwood) (Con)
Physical education is a crucial part of the school curriculum. Only last week, I visited Westerton Primary School in my constituency, which has been able to secure a minibus to allow children to attend more sport engagements. That is thanks to initiatives that have increased sport funding in schools, such as the primary PE and sport premium. I have seen the benefits of the policies on the ground. Will the Minister reassure the House that the Government will continue to support sport in schools?
Mr Speaker
The mention of sport gives me a heaven-sent opportunity to congratulate the inimitable Roger Federer on his latest triumph. He just gets better and better.
Dr Rupa Huq (Ealing Central and Acton) (Lab)
Nick Gibb
The A-level history syllabus was widely consulted on before it was confirmed, and the actual detail of the exam board content is determined by exam boards themselves, which are independent, so long as they conform to the subject content, which, as I said, was widely consulted upon.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
With over 30,000 cardiac arrests taking place outside hospitals every year and a disgracefully low survival rate of just 12%, it is no surprise that there is huge public support to make sure that every child is given a half-hour lesson on emergency life-saving skills, so that we can create a generation of life savers. Will the Secretary of State meet me to talk about how we can make that a reality?
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
The desperate rush to convert schools into academies does not appear to be matched by any rush to ensure adequate financial oversight and value for money. Will the Secretary of State please investigate why the academy trust United Learning received £150,000 to support Sedgehill School in south London, despite the school remaining maintained and United Learning not even becoming its sponsor?
Nick Gibb
We trust schools to manage their own budgets, and most do so extremely well. We are spending a record amount on schools—£41 billion—and academies are required to publish audited accounts every year, while their financial health is closely monitored by the Education and Skills Funding Agency. I will look at the specific issue the hon. Lady raises, but United Learning is a very successful multi-academy trust that is raising academic standards in schools, including a school in my constituency.
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
I very much welcome the steps the Government are taking to improve the mental wellbeing of school pupils, but does the Secretary of State agree that extracurricular activities such as sport are also vital in ensuring good wellbeing and mental health and that we should promote them at every opportunity?
Primary School Academisation: Cambridge
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on securing this debate, which is timely as it allows me to outline why academies are an important element in the Government’s success and drive in raising standards in our schools. Today, there are 1.9 million more pupils in schools graded by Ofsted as good and outstanding than there were in 2010. Standards are rising in our secondary schools and in our primary schools. Teachers have more autonomy now to run their schools, and 154,000 more six-year-olds are reading more effectively as a consequence of not only the hard work of teachers but the reforms implemented by this Government. There are more young people taking double or triple science today: 91% are entered for those GCSEs today compared with 63% in 2010.
We are a Government determined to raise academic standards right across the system in our schools. The reason why we are having this debate today and why the hon. Gentleman is raising these issues stems from the fact that Cambridgeshire County Council was concerned about standards at St Philip’s Primary School, which is why it issued a warning notice to the school. It is from that that we have the establishment of the interim executive board, which is now consulting parents about converting the school into an academy to be run by a multi-academy trust. There have been many hundreds of responses to the consultation process and it has extended the time for the process, so it does want to work with the local community and with parents. It wants to hear parental views. The overriding objective of the regional schools commissioner, this Government and Cambridgeshire County Council is to see standards improve in all our schools right across the country.
Since 2010, the number of schools benefiting from academy freedoms in this country has grown from 200, when the previous Labour Government left office, to more than 7,000. The system that academisation brings started under the previous Labour Government, and we have built on that process to give professionals the autonomy to run their schools free from political interference and to raise standards. We have now reached the point where 7,000 schools have that professional autonomy and that academy status.
More than a third of state-funded schools are now part of an academy trust. The multi-academy trust model is a powerful vehicle for improving school standards and raising academic standards by sharing, for example, financial back-office skills, facilities and teaching resources and partnering the best of our state-funded schools with schools that are struggling. Two thirds of our academies are converter academies. These are good schools that made the decision to become an academy, and many of them have established multi-academy trusts, helping other schools to improve. A further 2,000 schools have become academies with the support of a sponsor to help them to raise the quality of education that they are providing.
Since 2014, the number of MATs has doubled. As of 1 January this year, 79% of all academies are in a multi-academy trust, with 62% of those academies in a MAT of five or more schools. Academies have been raising academic standards. More than 450,000 pupils now study in good or outstanding sponsored academies which were previously typically underperforming schools. Pupils in secondary converter academies are making more progress between the ages of 11 and 16 than pupils in other types of schools, and 90% of converter academies are rated as good or outstanding. For sponsored academies, since 2010, 65% of schools that were previously inadequate under local authority control are now rated good or outstanding since becoming a sponsored academy, where an inspection has taken place.
A good example of what academy sponsorship is able to achieve is the Harris Academy Battersea, which is the highest performing sponsored academy in England. In 2017, it registered a progress 8 score of 1.49, placing it within the top 1 % of all schools. The National Foundation for Educational Research reported that sponsored academies are significantly more likely to be rated as outstanding compared with similar local authority maintained schools. The professional autonomy of academy status leads to a more dynamic and responsive education system, giving head teachers the opportunity to make decisions based on the interests of their pupils and on local need, and it allows high-performing schools to spread that excellence across to other schools. The Government are determined to raised academic studies by encouraging evidence-based teaching, building on a knowledge-rich curriculum and by providing teachers and school leaders with the autonomy to drive school improvement.
Daniel Zeichner
I am grateful to the Minister for taking an intervention. He will know that there are other views about the success of these processes. I shall put to him again the essential point in my speech. If a school has recovered, its results are good and it is doing well, and if there is clearly strong support for it, as in this case, why would we want to destabilise it when there is strong support in the local community for it to stay as it is?
Nick Gibb
As I have said, in 2016, Cambridgeshire County Council issued the school with a warning notice. To ensure sustainability of standards the interim executive board was established. The board is consulting on the next steps, and it has made the decision that it is best for the school to become an academy under the diocese. It is consulting on that decision, and it is taking parents’ views into account. It had a meeting today, as the hon. Gentleman said, and it will continue to go through the process.
Overall in Cambridgeshire, 97% of secondary schools are academies or free schools, and we expect that to be 100% shortly. One third of primary schools are currently academies or free schools, and that number is expected to rise in the coming year, with 17 schools currently moving to academy status. In the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, there are six secondary schools. Five of them are academies, and the remaining school intends to become an academy this term. There are 23 primary schools and a maintained special school. Just two of the primary schools are academies or free schools, and four primary schools are currently going through the process of joining a multi-academy trust, which is significantly lower than elsewhere in Cambridgeshire.
In September 2014, 82% of primary schools in Cambridge were rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. In November last year, that rose to 91%, which is above the national average. Four of the five secondary academies have positive progress 8 scores, including Chesterton Community College, part of Cambridgeshire Educational Trust, which is in the top 1% of schools nationally and was recently graded by Ofsted as outstanding. Cambridgeshire Educational Trust is a great example of the development of the school-led system in which teaching approaches have raised academic results. It has successfully transferred that outstanding practice to a long-standing underperforming secondary school in Norfolk, and it has received approval to establish two new free schools in 2017, including a post-16 mathematics school in Cambridge, working in partnership with the university.
Daniel Zeichner
I appreciate the Minister’s generosity in giving way again. I deliberately tried not to single out organisations apart from the one that stimulated this debate. However, on the back of that eulogy, may I remind the Minister that he has not taken the opportunity to answer any of the questions that I posed? How many unqualified teachers have been employed? What changes to terms and conditions have been made in the multi-academy trusts to which he referred? It is hard to know how to find out.
Nick Gibb
The Diocese of Ely multi-academy trust does not use unqualified teachers in its schools. Nationally, about 95% of teachers are qualified. Many teachers who do not have qualified teacher status generally have a skill, knowledge or experience to bring to the school, which is why schools employ them.
Where standards do not meet expectations, the regional schools commissioner and the local authority work together to target underperformance. Action has been taken to ensure sustainable school improvement, including requiring poorly performing schools to join multi-academy trusts. For example, North Cambridge Academy, formerly Manor Community College, has been transformed by Cambridge Meridian Academies Trust. It began as a school in special measures, but is now graded as good, with pupils’ progress in the top 30% nationally.
I am aware that the hon. Gentleman has been involved with the St Philip’s Church of England Aided Primary School in Cambridge. As I said, the local authority established an interim executive board at the request of the former governing body, which felt unable to address the performance concerns at the school. Part of the interim executive board’s role has been to consider the school’s long-term future. Its decision on the future of the school is being discussed at the meeting today, which will include full consideration of academy status following a consultation exercise with parents and the community. The regional schools commissioner, Sue Baldwin, met the hon. Gentleman in October to discuss the future of the school. There is a strong relationship between Cambridgeshire County Council and the regional schools commissioner team, and they meet on a regular basis.
Standards in our primary and secondary schools are rising. The Government’s education reforms have meant that 1.9 million more children attend good or outstanding schools compared with 2010. The academisation programme that the hon. Gentleman discussed has been key to raising those academic standards.
Question put and agreed to.
School Revenue Funding Settlement: 2018-19
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years, 1 month ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Today I am confirming the school and early years funding allocations for 2018-19. This announcement covers the Dedicated Schools Grant (DSG), the Education Services Grant (ESG) protections for academies, and the pupil premium. This is supported by the additional £1.3 billion for schools and high needs over the next two years that the Secretary of State for Education announced in July. Pupils Per Pupil Rate Disadvantaged pupils: Primary £1,320 Disadvantaged pupils: Secondary £935 Pupil Premium Plus: Looked After Children (LAC) and those adopted from care or who leave care under a Special Guardianship Order or Child Arrangements Order (formally known as a residence order). £2,300 Service children £300
As previously announced, the distribution of the DSG to local authorities will be set out in four blocks for each authority: a schools block, a high needs block, an early years block, and the new central school services block.
On 14 September, the Secretary of State for Education announced a new national funding formula for schools and high needs from April 2018. This follows the introduction of a national funding formula for early years in April 2017. This is an historic reform. The new national funding formulae will direct resources where they are most needed, helping to ensure that every child has the high quality education that they deserve, wherever they live.
The schools block has been allocated between local authorities on the basis of the primary and secondary units of funding published in September 2017.
The allocations for the high needs block have been updated with the latest pupil numbers, following the publication of provisional allocations in September indicating how much each local authority was likely to receive. The high needs block supports provision for pupils and students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), up to the age of 25, and alternative provision for pupils who cannot receive their education in schools.
The new central school services block which funds local authorities for their ongoing responsibilities for both academies and maintained schools has also been allocated on the basis of the latest pupil numbers, in line with September’s announcement.
The early years block comprises funding for: the free early education entitlements for 3 and 4-year-olds and disadvantaged 2-year-olds, supplementary funding for maintained nursery schools; the early years pupil premium, and the disability access fund. The early years national funding formula rates for 3 and 4-year-olds for 2018-19 were published on 17 November, and today we have announced initial allocations for this block.
We will maintain the ESG protections in 2018-19 at their current rates, to protect academies from excessive changes in funding as a result of the ending of the ESG.
The pupil premium per pupil amounts will be protected at the current rates, with the exception of the pupil premium plus, which will increase from £1,900 per pupil to £2,300, as previously announced. The amounts for 2018-19 will be:
A looked after child is defined in the Children Act 1989 as one who is in the care of, or provided with accommodation by, an English or Welsh local authority.
Pupil premium allocations for financial year 2018-19 will be published in June 2018 following the receipt of pupil number data from the spring 2018 schools and alternative provision censuses. Details of these arrangements will be published on www.gov.uk.
Oral Answers to Questions
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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Mike Hill (Hartlepool) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
Academies and multi-academy trusts are subject to a much stronger financial accountability regime than local authority-maintained schools. Academies are required to publish audited financial accounts annually, and the Education and Skills Funding Agency oversees compliance with the funding agreement. We take swift and robust action at the first sign of failure, either financial failure or academic underperformance. The auditors gave 98% of academy trust 2015-16 accounts a clean bill of health.
Mike Hill
In my constituency, we have suffered significant cuts in central budgets that support the most vulnerable people in our communities. Hartlepool Council has suffered cuts of almost 50% over the last five years, at a time when demands on services continue to rise rapidly. The council has tried very hard to protect frontline children’s services, but there has nevertheless been a 14% reduction in funding for them, Can the Secretary of State explain how our most vulnerable children and young people will have increased social mobility, given the significant and growing pressures on social care, funding for those—
Mr Speaker
Order. First, the question is far too long, and secondly, I am afraid that it does not relate to the matter that we are discussing. We are supposed to be talking about the financial accountability of multi-academy trusts.
Nick Gibb
We are spending record amounts on school funding. We are spending £41 billion this year, and that will rise to £43.5 billion by 2019-20. In the new national funding formula, a fair system that previous Governments have shied away from introducing, we give huge priority to funding for the disadvantaged.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
During education questions last month, I raised the case of High Crags primary school in my constituency, which had £276,000 snaffled from its funds by Wakefield City Academies Trust shortly before the trust’s collapse. The school is in a very deprived part of the constituency, and, quite understandably, it wants its money back. Will the Minister tell us what he is doing to ensure that that happens?
Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend should know that no academy trust can profit from its schools, and the Wakefield trust will not be able to retain any reserves that it has at the point of dissolution. We are working with all the academies and the preferred new trust to determine what is appropriate support and proper funding.
Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)
I hope that the standard of the question is up to that of the jumper, Mr Speaker, but I fear that it may not be.
Notwithstanding what the Minister has said, the acting chief executive of Wakefield City Academies Trust managed to pay himself £1,000 a day in a company owned by his daughter and to pay £60,000 a year for clerking services. Despite those excessive sums, however, it appears that the audit committee did not meet for a full calendar year to sign off the probity of those payments. How many more academy trusts across the country are in special measures? Into how many more trusts has the Minister sent his special auditors so that they can have a look? He sent them into Wakefield, but he did not tell anyone else about what was going on, leaving the trust to fail in September during the first week of the new term.
Nick Gibb
All related-party transactions must be disclosed, and they are. We are working with the trust to transfer all 21 academies to new sponsors with a track record of improving schools and delivering high academic standards. Those transfers will take place in a way that secures the financial future of each school.
James Heappey (Wells) (Con)
The excellent Priory multi-academy trust has been working with King Alfred school in Highbridge, in my constituency, since the school was placed in special measures last year. They have made some very good progress, but the trust’s board of directors is nervous about formalising the sponsorship until urgently needed repairs have been completed at the school. Will the Minister meet me, along with representatives of the trust and the school, so that we can resolve the impasse at the earliest opportunity?
Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)
I am confused. In 2015 the Education Funding Agency conducted a financial management and governance review of the failed Wakefield City Academies Trust, but the Department refused to publish it, placing the trust’s commercial interests above the interests of the 8,500 pupils. So can the Minister answer the question of my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh): how many more MATs are in peril on his watch?
Nick Gibb
As I said earlier, 98% of academy trust accounts for 2015-16 got a clean bill of health. We take the financial probity of the academy system very seriously. All academies have to publish audited financial accounts, which maintained local authority schools do not. The fact that far fewer schools today are rated as inadequate than in 2010 is a tribute to the structural reforms and the academies programme. Currently, 450,000 pupils are in sponsored academies rated as good or outstanding. Under the watch of the hon. Gentleman’s party these schools were typically underperforming, before we turned them into sponsored academies.
Stephen Morgan (Portsmouth South) (Lab)
Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The Government are making a significant capital investment in the school estate: we have committed over £23 billion in capital funding over the period 2016-21. This will create over 600,000 new school places, rebuild buildings in the worst condition at over 500 schools through the priority school building programme, and deliver thousands of projects to improve the physical condition of school buildings. Since 2010, capital funding has resulted in 735,000 new places and revenue funding is at an all-time high at £41 billion.
Stephen Morgan
Recent research by the National Education Union and Tes found that 94% of teachers pay for essential classroom supplies, including at schools in my constituency where glue-sticks are being brought in by hard-working staff. With this in mind, does the Minister still maintain that Portsmouth’s schools have enough money and resources?
Nick Gibb
No parent should be expected to pay for the basic needs of their school, although they can, of course, be asked to fund school trips and extra things. We are spending record amounts on our school system: £41 billion this year, rising to £43.5 billion by 2019-20, and standards are rising in our school system, too, in reading, maths and GCSEs, despite a more rigorous curriculum in our secondary and primary schools.
Bambos Charalambous
Can the Minister confirm that, despite the additional £1.3 billion announced in July, the schools budget is still facing a £1.5 billion real-terms funding shortfall, which nothing has been done to reverse?
Nick Gibb
No. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced an additional £1.3 billion in July, as the hon. Gentleman kindly acknowledged. That means that not only have we maintained school funding in real terms, as we did in the last Parliament, but we have maintained school funding in real terms per pupil in this period up to 2020.
Lucy Frazer (South East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Currently, bids for capital spending on maintenance for schools are assessed on the state of the building. Given that there is significant competition for these bids and it is very difficult to assess the state of buildings in different schools across the country, is there not a case for also assessing the historical underfunding in various areas of our country?
Nick Gibb
We deal with the historical underfunding through a fairer national funding formula. On capital funding, we are spending £10 billion between 2016 and 2021 on school replacements, maintenance and improvement. That must be determined according to the condition of the school, and we have conducted a national survey of all schools in the country so that the system is fair.
Kevin Foster (Torbay) (Con)
Through the Minister, may I thank the Secretary of State and her Parliamentary Private Secretary for their superb response to the question I asked at the last Education questions session? On Friday, I was at Shiphay Learning Academy meeting its headteacher Elaine Gill, to discuss the condition of its building, and particularly the roof. Will the Minister reassure me that there will be an adequacy of funding to seriously consider the bid it is about to put forward to the condition improvement fund?
Alex Sobel (Leeds North West) (Lab/Co-op)
Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)
Sawtry Village Academy in my constituency is in serious financial difficulty, not least because of the activities of its former head, which included building a sex dungeon alongside his office for his private use. That headteacher is now in prison, but the financial difficulties of the school remain. Will the Minister kindly agree to meet me and representatives of the school to discuss the way forward?
Angela Rayner (Ashton-under-Lyne) (Lab)
Can the Minister confirm that the Budget actually cut education capital funding by £1 billion in this spending review, and that part of that cut involves removing more than three quarters of the healthy pupils capital programme? Perhaps he recalls the Government’s pledge earlier this year that the healthy pupils fund would not fall below £415 million, regardless. Will he now apologise for breaking that promise?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Lady has misunderstood the budget process. We have not cut £1 billion from the capital spending of schools. What we have done is convert an element of the healthy schools budget into revenue spending, to ensure that schools are properly funded on the frontline, because we believe that schools need to be properly funded and that is how we have managed to allocate an extra £1.3 billion to school funding—something that she and the school system have called for.
Maria Eagle (Garston and Halewood) (Lab)
Scott Mann (North Cornwall) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
We are committing £84 million of new funding between 2018 and 2023 to support computing teaching in schools, which will include training up to 8,000 secondary teachers to teach the new computing science GSCE, a national centre for computing education and an online resource for the A-level. That will support schools in delivering the new computing curriculum, which includes coding from key stage 1, and our reformed GCSE and A-level, both of which have a strong focus on programming.
Scott Mann
Cornwall is one of the fastest growing areas for tech start-ups in the whole country, and it is vital to address the challenges that we face on rural poverty as we move from a place-based economy to a skills-based economy. Does my right hon. Friend recognise that the secondary schools and the colleges in Cornwall are ready and raring to go to fill those gaps in that growing market in the economy?
Nick Gibb
We recognise both the challenges and the successes in Cornwall. My hon. Friend, of course, is one of Cornwall’s greatest champions. Cornwall and the Scilly Isles is one of the first areas where we are establishing a skills advisory panel with the local enterprise partnership to bring together local representatives, including local businesses; train providers and colleges; and develop a comprehensive analysis of the area’s skills needs to help ensure that skills provision meets those needs.
James Frith (Bury North) (Lab)
The success of T-levels, which will incorporate coding and programming in education, will largely rely on addressing the chronic underfunding of our colleges, so was the Secretary of State disappointed, as Bury College and Holy Cross College in my constituency were, that the Chancellor ignored the pleas to address the great iniquity of post-16 funding? What will the Secretary of State do about it?
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
Will Quince (Colchester) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
The aim of our Mandarin Excellence programme, which was established in 2014, was to have 5,000 pupils fluent in Mandarin by 2020, and it is on track to achieve that. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for West Dorset (Sir Oliver Letwin), who originally proposed this idea to me. The programme is now in 37 schools, with more than 1,400 pupils participating, all of whom are committed to eight hours of study—four hours in class and four hours of homework—each week. The intention is that by the time these pupils are in year 13, they will be fluent in Mandarin, reaching the international standard HSK (Level V).
Mr Speaker
The answers that are scribbled by those who serve Ministers are very informative, but the trouble is they are too long. It is the responsibility of Ministers to reduce their size. We are all very entertained by the Minister of State, but it would be good if he could do so more briefly.
Will Quince
Last week, the British Government hosted the UK young leaders’ roundtable and the people-to-people dialogue between the UK and China. Having recently visited China myself and seen the great opportunity that exists, does the Minister agree that having more schools offering Chinese or Mandarin as an option would help to strengthen the global strategic partnership between our two countries?
Nick Gibb
Yes, my hon. Friend is right. Last week we invited Minister Chen from China and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to meet 140 pupils who were participating in the Mandarin Excellence project. Minister Chen was impressed, as we all were, by the standard of the Mandarin being spoken by year 8 pupils who had been studying on the programme for just one year.
Joanna Cherry (Edinburgh South West) (SNP)
Tom Pursglove (Corby) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We want every child to have a good school place that provides them with the knowledge and skills to succeed in the future. Thanks to changes made by this Government, and the hard work of thousands of teachers across the country, he is right to say that 87% of children are now in good or outstanding schools compared with 66% in 2010.
Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)
The academic community in the north of Ireland might have a way ahead in the light of the recent Brexit negotiations. Will the Secretary of State give the same reassurance to the academic community in Scotland which, as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) highlighted, is concerned about the recruitment and retention of EU nationals?
Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)
Parents in my constituency largely have access to schools offering faith-based education for their children, if they desire it, but every one of those schools is over-subscribed. What more can my right hon. Friend do to ensure that there is real choice for parents in faith-based education?
Nick Gibb
We greatly value the important role that faith schools play in our education system. They are high performing, they are popular with parents and they make an excellent contribution to our education system. Through the free schools programme, we have facilitated the creation of 71 new state-funded faith schools.
Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Will the Minister for School Standards join me in congratulating Swindon Academy, in conjunction with Marlborough College, on doubling its intake this year, with children from all backgrounds now having a real chance of accessing the very top universities?
Nick Gibb
I would be delighted to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Swindon Academy. I enjoyed visiting the school with him and meeting Ruth Robinson, its exceptional principal. The school runs special programmes to help the most able children to fulfil their potential, as well as providing very high standards of education across the board.
Emma Hardy (Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle) (Lab)
If the Department is serious about meeting its apprenticeships targets, surely the Minister will agree with me about the need to reclassify apprenticeships as improved education or training so that young, hard-working apprentices, such as Chloe from Hull, save money on their transport and prescription costs.
Leaving the EU: Student Exchanges
Nick Gibb Excerpts(8 years, 2 months ago)
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The Minister for School Standards (Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis) on securing this debate. I join her in thanking the language teachers up and down the country who teach our young people to speak, write and read in a foreign language. As I will mention later, I was at school this morning with a commendable group of language teachers, who do wonderful work in that school.
This debate gives me the opportunity to emphasise again the Government’s commitment to remaining open to the world after we leave the EU and to becoming even more global and internationalist in our outlook. Improving the take-up and teaching of modern foreign languages in our schools and ensuring that there continues to be international opportunities for students, young people and teachers to participate in exchanges is an important part of achieving that goal. I also agree with my hon. Friend that there are business, cultural and educational benefits to learning a language
The level of take-up and proficiency in foreign languages in England is not yet what it should be—my hon. Friend was right to point that out—and we have taken steps to address that. In 2010, we introduced the English baccalaureate. To meet this measure of performance for state-funded secondary schools, pupils have to be entered for GCSEs in English, maths, science, history or geography and an ancient or modern foreign language. In July, we announced our ambition for 75% of year 10 pupils to be taking the EBacc by 2022 and for that to reach 90% by 2025. It was 37% this year. That represents a significant step-change for schools, particularly in relation to the uptake of languages GCSEs, which is often the area that has prevented schools from achieving higher EBacc entry rates. Our expectation is that the uptake of these GCSEs will increase over the coming years, widening the potential pool of students with the ability to continue studying languages to a higher level.
In September 2014, schools began to teach the new national curriculum that we introduced. It requires local authority-maintained primary schools to teach a modern or ancient foreign language to pupils at key stage 2. Schools can choose which language to teach, and must ensure that pupils make substantial progress in one language by the end of primary school. It is also mandatory for maintained secondary schools to teach a foreign language to pupils at key stage 3. Although there is no requirement for every pupil in such schools to then take a language at GCSE, there is a statutory entitlement for every pupil to take a course leading to a recognised qualification, if they wish to do so.
The fact that pupils often have the choice of whether to continue to study a language to GCSE makes it especially important for their earlier experiences of being taught the subject to be positive.
Mr Jim Cunningham
The Minister may or may not be able to answer this question. How popular is Chinese—how interested are people in this country in taking up the language? The Chinese have lots of markets and we should not forget that we trade with China.
Nick Gibb
If the hon. Gentleman is patient, I shall come to that. One of the purposes of my visit this morning was to see the Mandarin excellence programme that is happening in a number of schools throughout the country.
In a 2015 report, “Key stage 3: the wasted years?”, Ofsted reported that many pupils chose to discontinue studying languages at the end of key stage 3 because of a lack of enjoyment in their lessons or a feeling of not making enough progress. That was despite many of the same pupils recognising the value of languages. Prompted by that, the Teaching Schools Council carried out a review of modern foreign languages pedagogy in key stages 3 and 4. The review was carried out by the experienced headteacher Ian Bauckham and reported in November last year. It set out key principles for delivering effective language teaching and produced a number of sensible recommendations for teachers and headteachers in schools.
We have improved the standard and quality of qualifications. We worked with Ofqual, subject experts, universities and teachers to design new GCSEs and A-levels, which were introduced for French, German and Spanish in 2016. The level of demand of these qualifications matches those of the highest-performing countries, and they will better prepare pupils for the demands of further education and employment. They are robust qualifications in which students, employers, colleges and universities can have confidence. French, German and Spanish remain the top three most popular foreign languages taught in our schools, although Mandarin is coming up fast. As the British Council “Languages for the Future” report highlights, Mandarin is one of the top five languages of crucial importance for the UK’s future prosperity, security and influence in the world.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham) might be interested to know that the Department has established and funded the Mandarin excellence programme since 2016. The programme offers intense study in the language, which is not only personally enriching for students but will give them a significant advantage when they enter the world of work. We want 5,000 young people, ab initio, to study the language and become fluent by 2020.
Pupils on the programme study Mandarin—listen to this—for eight hours a week, at least four hours of which are teacher-led in classrooms, with the remaining four hours in their own time. Over the next four years, I hope that we will see a significant increase in the numbers of pupils on the programme. The programme started with 14 secondary schools in September 2016, and 23 additional secondary schools joined in September this year.
I was delighted earlier today to see the programme in action and meet some of the pupils during my visit to Alexandra Park School in Haringey. At Alexandra Park, 27 pupils started in the year 7 cohort in September last year. They scored a very impressive 95% average mark in progress tests across reading, writing, listening and speaking last summer, and they have all progressed to the second year of the programme. A new year 7 cohort of 30 pupils started Mandarin lessons at Alexandra Park in September 2017, and I am sure they will do equally well. Incidentally, all year 7 pupils at that school study Mandarin and a European language.
Mr Jim Cunningham
Once again, I am not sure whether the Minister can answer this question now. Perhaps he can write to me on it. Are any schools in Coventry teaching Mandarin?
Nick Gibb
I will have to write to the hon. Gentleman about that. We want to have a spread of Mandarin excellence programmes across the country, but the initial schools were chosen because they already had a track record of teaching Mandarin very well. The project is led and driven by the excellent Katharine Carruthers of the UCL Institute of Education. The pupils I met this morning were hugely impressive, very ambitious and had high expectations. They want not only to take a GCSE and an A-level in Mandarin, but to go on to HSK 4 and HSK 5, which is essentially fluency in the language. Interestingly, I asked them all what they wanted to do when they left school and none of them wanted to go on to study Mandarin at university. They wanted to be lawyers, doctors and business people, but they also wanted to be fluent in Mandarin.
Jamie Stone
The answer to my question may be, “Write a letter to John Swinney in the Scottish Government” but does the Minister have any idea what the situation is with regard to the teaching of Mandarin across the border in Scotland?
Nick Gibb
No, I am afraid that I do not. This is a devolved matter. I have spoken to John Swinney a number of times about education matters, and the Scottish Government are implementing a new curriculum for excellence.
The programme also supports the training of new Mandarin teachers to ensure that there is capacity within the system to teach Mandarin. The quality and supply of teachers of modern foreign languages are essential to pupil proficiency and progression. It is very important that pupils are taught by high-quality and inspiring teachers—like the ones I met this morning—in all the subjects, including languages. We remain committed to attracting the brightest and best graduates into the teaching profession. To support that commitment, we continue to offer generous tax-free bursaries, worth up to £26,000, and tax-free scholarships of up to £28,000 for trainees in modern foreign languages.
Figures released today show that we recruited 1,405 modern foreign language trainees to start initial teacher training courses this year, achieving 93% of our target, which was similar to our performance last year, where we achieved 94% of our target.
Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)
I appreciate the Minister giving way on this important subject. Is he aware of the ScotGrad programme in Scotland, which is run by Scottish Enterprise? It sponsors up to 40% of the gross salary of an undergraduate for a year so they may undertake a placement in industry on the subject of business development. Let me cite a good example. When I worked with Scottish Enterprise, I sponsored a foreign language student, a Mandarin student, who worked with a heavy engineering company in Scotland. As a result of that one-year placement, the company increased its turnover in the Chinese market by up to 60% in the given year. That was a huge commercial opportunity, and just shows the untapped potential of integrating foreign language skills into our industries. There could be a good opportunity to roll that out across the United Kingdom.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. We are a global trading nation and it is essential that we are able to speak to our customers in their own language, which is why I feel as passionately as my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and the hon. Gentleman about the importance of young people learning languages.
We recognise, however, that recruitment in modern foreign language subjects continues to be challenging, which is why we are supporting schools with targeted initiatives that go beyond our standard recruitment channels. For example, we recently announced a new student loan reimbursement programme for MFL teachers in the early years of their career. This pilot incentivises new teachers to stay in the profession and to teach in the areas where they are needed most. We also acknowledge the valuable contribution that internationally trained teachers make to education in this country, which is why we want to ensure that schools have the opportunity to recruit from overseas to fill posts that cannot be filled from the resident workforce.
We are working with the Spanish Ministry of Education and have joined its visiting teachers programme, which provides opportunities for schools in England to recruit high-quality modern foreign language teachers from Spain. An acclimatisation package is provided to help to support the new teachers to work and live in England. Sixteen teachers took up post in September 2017, and we have built a recruitment pool of over 60 teachers available for recruitment this academic year. We also recognise the benefits that cultural exchange can bring. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about that. They build important political, diplomatic and knowledge-sharing networks around the world, not to mention the lifelong friendships that come from those exchanges.
Since 2007, the UK Government have co-funded an annual headteachers’ exchange programme with the Ministry of Education in Singapore and the British Council, and I was delighted to attend the 10th anniversary of the programme at the Singapore high commission last week. This scheme provides an excellent opportunity for headteachers in England to share ideas and best practice with their counterparts in Singapore, which is the best-performing country in PISA on important areas such as improving maths teaching and the use of textbooks to support a knowledge-rich curriculum. Headteachers who have taken part in previous exchanges have reported a lasting positive impact. For example, Executive Head Marie-Claire Bretherton of Mount Street Academy, Lincoln, has now trained 60 teachers across the Kyra Teaching Schools Alliance in maths mastery following her visit to Singapore in 2016.
School links and exchanges between schools have long provided valuable cultural and language experiences for our pupils. Many of our schools have long-standing partnerships with schools overseas, and the British Council manages a number of school-linking programmes in over 40 countries and a supportive framework for international activities in schools through its international school award. Supporting student exchanges helps us to create a new generation that is globally mobile, culturally agile and thrives in an increasingly global economy.
In higher education, we are keen to work with the sector to further explore how we can best promote outward mobility and the benefits our UK students will gain from studying abroad. Earlier this month, my hon. Friend the Universities Minister welcomed the Go International: Stand Out campaign launched by Universities UK International to encourage young people to experience studying, working and volunteering abroad. This campaign aims to double the percentage of UK students having some form of outward mobility experience as part of their degree by 2020.
I cannot talk about student exchange without mentioning the long-established Erasmus+ programme. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made it clear in her Florence speech that education was one area where she hoped the UK would continue to participate on the basis of a fair and ongoing contribution, among many other areas of business, commerce and culture.
We are not just committed to providing our young people with outward mobility opportunities. We also recognise the importance of welcoming talent from around the world into our institutions. As the Government have said before, EU and international students enrich the UK, both financially and culturally, bring greater diversity to our schools, universities and colleges, add an international dimension to the experience of our students and go on to become important ambassadors for the UK in later life.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising these important issues and for allowing me to point out how much the Government value modern foreign languages, inspirational teachers and student exchanges. I hope that she is reassured that we recognise the importance of this issue and that we are working to get the right result for the education sector in the UK.
Question put and agreed to.