Social Mobility Commission: State of the Nation Report

Debate between Siobhain McDonagh and Baroness Morgan of Cotes

Thursday 23rd March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Nicky Morgan]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The importance of families and of having two parents or two important role models in life—and of both boys and girls having a strong male role model—should not be underestimated. It is no secret that I disagree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Mr Duncan Smith) on some policy issues, but the work that he did at the Centre for Social Justice and the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Mr Burrowes) is doing now on the importance of family relationships and public policy should not be underestimated.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

On the issue of working hours, I find in my south-west London constituency that the bigger determinant is ethnicity. If people have travelled a long way to get here, an education is the most important thing for them. In my experience, their children do exceptionally well whatever hours they work, because they imbue them with the importance of education. The young people who go to the grammar schools in south London, other than the privileged ones, are overwhelmingly from particular ethnic minorities. In my experience, that particularly includes children from the Tamil community.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nicky Morgan]

The hon. Lady makes a really interesting point. There is a broader point, which is that we are sometimes reluctant to explore too far the differences in social mobility between different communities and people from different ethnic backgrounds. She is right, in that anyone walking around Chinatown on a Saturday morning will see children sitting there, often in their parents’ restaurants, actually doing their homework. I do not need to tell the Minister about the successes, particularly in maths, of students from the far east.

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to talk about drive and aspiration, and I will come on to aspiration in a moment. It always struck me when I was Secretary of State for Education that around the world young people and their families are fighting for education, and sometimes in this country we have parents fighting to take their children to Disneyland. That tells me that education is not given the importance in everybody’s lives that it should be given. I suspect that part of the success of the London challenge—it is difficult to unpick exactly what was behind it, because there were lots of factors in the London challenge that made a difference—was due to the diverse ethnic backgrounds and the importance that people from different ethnic backgrounds attach to education, and everything that goes with that.

As I was saying, there are parts of the country that feel they are very much left behind other parts. That is picked up in the commission’s report, which also says that

“today only one in eight children from low-income backgrounds is likely to become a high income earner as an adult.”

Politicians and the Government have to find a way of renewing that social contract; otherwise, we are playing into the hands of those who would feed on the dissent and take advantage of it at forthcoming elections. That means that we need to focus on communities and areas where social divisions are at their widest and where social mobility has stalled or is going backwards.

Recently, I have been studying the Louise Casey review of opportunity and integration. We are awaiting the Government response to it. It is a fascinating report, in which she says that integration is a key part of a successful immigration policy. I do not think we have used the word “integration” in our immigration discussions enough. I do not expect the Minister to respond to that point, because he is not a Home Office Minister, but Louise Casey goes on to say that social mobility is a key part of integration:

“As well as providing economic advantages, social mobility also provides knock-on benefits such as reducing grievances, heightening a sense of belonging to a country or community and increasing geographic mobility and social mixing too.”

As I said, schools and education are the great driver of social mobility. It is worth drawing attention again to what the Social Mobility Commission report says:

“Despite a welcome focus on improving attainment in schools, the link between social demography and educational destiny has not been broken”.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central was right to say that that is not the fault of one Government, but has happened over successive years. However, it cannot be right that that link between social demography and educational destiny has not been broken. The report states that

“over the last five years 1.2 million 16-year-olds—disproportionately from low-income homes—have left school without five good GCSEs.”

It goes on to say:

“A child living in one of England’s most disadvantaged areas is 27 times more likely to go to an inadequate school than a child living in one of the least disadvantaged. Ten local authorities account for one in five of England’s children in failing schools.”

We know where the problem is; we must work out how to fix it. What does that mean in practice? Those of us who have talked about choice in education must realise that for families who are surrounded by inadequate schools, “choice” is a hollow word. There are no good or outstanding schools in those areas, and the families cannot afford to buy their way out of poor services or even the transport to a different area.

The focus on areas is right. In the White Paper that the Department published last March, “Educational Excellence Everywhere”, areas of entrenched educational underperformance were announced, where access to high quality teachers, leaders and sponsors was insufficient. They are now opportunity areas and I hope that the Minister will say more about them in his concluding remarks. It will be helpful to know the plan for investing in them, the services that will receive attention and how we will tackle getting high quality teachers, leaders and sponsors into them. We can be more directional. That is where Government can give a lead.

The hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) said that it is about not just academic attainment but aspiration. One of my most formative experiences—I have probably shared it with hon. Members previously—was visiting a primary school in Lancashire. It was a good primary school. It would be fair to say that the staffroom was not inclined towards my politics, but we had a robust discussion. I was struck by the fact that the headteacher had moved to this rather nicer area and this good school from an inner-city primary school. She said of the latter, “Oh well, those children were never going to be more than ‘requires improvement’”. How can someone write off children before they reach the age of 11 as never amounting to more than “requires improvement”? What a waste of human potential. What a waste for our country. That attitude must be overcome.

Attitudes in families of, “My child can access a profession, go to university, get a great apprenticeship”, even though perhaps the parent did not, should be encouraged. We must also foster the attitude in schools that children will fulfil their potential.

[Siobhain McDonagh]

I believe that all parents aspire for their children, but some do not know how to make things happen. We know that doing more homework on more evenings is more likely to get children to where they aspire to be. The inability to connect reality and the required work with the aspiration is a problem.

[Nicky Morgan]

I agree. It is not that parents do not want the best for their child. If you ask most parents on the birth of a child, they want their child to be happy, healthy and successful in life. I will talk about extra-curricular activities shortly because again, there is a social injustice in access to those activities. The hon. Lady is right about support. All the nagging that middle-class parents do about homework, or chivvying children to read more books, often does not happen elsewhere, not for lack of wanting to do it but perhaps because it was not done to those parents. Going into a child’s school and challenging teachers is anathema to someone who has had a very unhappy school experience. Attendance at parents’ evenings is indicative of the support that children get at home.

Aspiration is about aiming high for young people. I did not have a chance to look up the name of the school, so I apologise for not remembering it, but I went to a fantastic primary school in Northamptonshire, where a high proportion of children had free school meals, but it was working with the Royal Shakespeare Company and every child had access to Shakespeare and his language. I heard the tiniest children talk about Shakespeare’s characters and watched the older children perform complicated scenes—I would have had difficulty remembering all those lines, but they were doing brilliantly. The headteacher there had high aspirations. He said, “All my children will be able to do this and benefit and learn.” They were doing incredibly well.

I pay tribute to the National Association of Head Teachers for setting up its “Primary Futures” campaign, which is about getting adults into schools to talk about their careers and broaden horizons. When I was in the DFE, we set up the Careers & Enterprise Company. Broadening horizons, and aspirational and inspirational careers advice, are important. There will be a difference of opinion in the House about work experience, which we have debated. One week’s dry work experience in an office will not necessarily set the flame alight, but I remember talking to some apprentices, who told me that a week at Rolls-Royce, where they could see how the maths they were learning would be applied in the workplace, does set the flame alight. People then go back to school more determined to do better in their maths classes.

There is a changing labour market. In the article at the weekend that the hon. Member for Manchester Central and I wrote, we talked about the number of high-skilled jobs that will be around. The Teach First briefing says that, by 2022, the British economy is expected to experience a shortage of 3 million workers to fill 15 million high-skilled jobs. At the same time, there will be 5 million more low-skilled workers than there are low-skilled jobs. I did not want to mention the “B” word this afternoon—it is very nice not to be talking about the European Union—but, if we are to change our immigration policy in this country and have fewer people coming in from overseas, we must ensure that all our young people are training for the labour market of the 21st century.

That is my problem with the Government’s focus on introducing more selection. We do not live in a world where we need only the top 20% or 30% to be highly skilled. We need everybody to have access to a knowledge-rich, excellent academic curriculum. A renewed battle over selection distracts from what is needed in our education to deal with the demands of a 21st-century labour market, to give everyone a chance to close social divisions, and to build a consistently strong school system.

Research from the Education Policy Institute talks about the negative effects on those who live in the most selective areas but who do not attend grammar schools. The negative effects emerge around the point when selective places are available for around 70% of high-attaining pupils. The research says that there are five times as many high-quality non-selective schools in England as there are grammar schools.

Every child is entitled to an academic curriculum. Like the Minister, I have seen some great schools in some very unexpected places. I remember my visit to King Solomon Academy in London—the Minister will have been there too—and to the Rushey Mead in Leicester. They have a higher proportion of children on free school meals but are doing incredibly well in terms of the exam results they are achieving. I also pay tribute to the Harris academies and Ark in Portsmouth.

The hon. Member for Manchester Central mentioned the secondary heads in Surrey who had written about selection. The Leicestershire secondary heads, too, wrote to the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Education. Impressively, every single headteacher in Leicestershire signed the letter. If the Minister has not seen it, I hope he can get hold of a copy. One paragraph states:

“As professionals who have dedicated our lives to educating children across Leicestershire, our concern is for all the children in our region. Removing the most able pupils in our schools will have a negative impact on those who remain. Removing the option of ambitious, all ability comprehensives, with a scarcity of academic role models, will impact most particularly on the least affluent and least able. Therein lies the most significant injustice of this policy.”

Academic attainment is important and we should set high aspirations and ambitions for all pupils, but pupils in the best schools gain something else, and I want all pupils to gain it. This was one of the things I tried to champion when I was in the Department for Education. I am thinking of the character traits—persistence, resilience, self-confidence, self-esteem—and the values and virtues of integrity, honesty and whatever it might be, that help to build a whole pupil. I was at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson School in north London recently. The school focuses on building social capital among its pupils. It is conscious of the fact that its pupils will have to compete with the independent school down the road. I visited the King’s Leadership Academy in Warrington, which is a new free school, now over-subscribed, where behaviour is excellent, and where aspirations are incredibly high. All the young people are trained for leadership. Kings Langley School in Hertfordshire and Gordano School near Bristol are fantastic schools—I could go on.

Educating young people is about not just what happens in the classroom, but access to other schemes. I pay tribute to the former Prime Minister and the current Government for their focus on the National Citizen Service and other schemes: social action, volunteering, uniformed activities such as the cadets, the guides and the scouts, and the Duke of Edinburgh award. They all help to build up experience and confidence in young people. Those of us who have been employers and have interviewed see the ability of some young people to walk through our door, look us in the eye and shake us by the hand. Some children are taught that and encouraged in school, but some are not. These things matter in helping young people to get on.

I mentioned extracurricular activities. The commission’s report specifically talks about the effect different social backgrounds have on how people participate:

“One study found that 43 per cent of children whose mother had a postgraduate degree had music lessons, compared with just 6 per cent of children whose mother had no qualifications. At the age of 11, 85 per cent of children whose mother had an undergraduate degree participated in organised sport outside of school, compared with 56 per cent of children whose mother had no formal qualifications.”

I was very pleased that in last year’s Budget the then Chancellor announced funding for a longer school day. It would be helpful to know what emphasis the Department will place on that to help schools provide such activities. It is not necessarily about the schools themselves providing the activities; it could be enabling all young people in their schools to take up a place and participate.