Holidays in School Term Time 

Allison Gardner Excerpts

Monday 25th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Edward. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Lichfield (Dave Robertson) for introducing the petition and the debate in Westminster Hall. As I have said previously, I am a teacher of 30 years’ experience, but I also have fantastic and wonderful children in my family who have certain difficulties. In the past, it has absolutely been the best possible thing for us go away on a family holiday for various reasons. We still think we did the right thing, so I see this debate from both sides.

As we have heard today, school attendance is absolutely vital to children’s development, for not just their academic skills but their social skills, as well as their mental and physical wellbeing. I am proud to support a Government who are committed to properly resourcing our education system. However, with an absence rate of 6.7% last autumn, we risk far too many children being left behind, and we have a unique situation at the moment post-covid. There are more difficulties with school attendance and in addressing the mental health problems of children, so I appreciate that we are in challenging times.

As we have heard, there are some very good reasons why a child may be absent, and there are children and families in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent South who are in difficult—but sadly not unique—circumstances, including bereavement. Bereavement is never just a one-off but often a long sequence of events, so the point from the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Vikki Slade) was well made, and I thank her for it. Fines will not only beat those people down but fail to encourage attendance. If a family has a child with special educational needs and disabilities who is having a particularly difficult time, and who needs more time, the fine is not an incentive; it is a punishment for looking after their child.

As the petition clearly sets out, there are families for whom travelling outside term time is quite impossible. While costs are higher, planes and trains are also overcrowded, so it is not just about the costs, although there are families in financial difficulties. For children with special needs or in unique situations, travelling at very busy times can be challenging. We sometimes need family holidays in difficult times, and those difficult times do not respect term times, so taking our child out of school is the only option.

Again, this unfairly punishes already struggling families, and worse, it compounds an issue that already exists. I understand that there are still some exemptions at the discretion of headteachers, but as we have just heard, more needs to be done with them. From speaking to parents who have contacted me, and I spoke to one only this morning, I can say that that discretion is not always evenly exercised, so this is not hypothetical. In Stoke-on-Trent South, my constituents are 20% more likely to be living with learning disabilities than the national average. The parent whom I spoke to today has a neurodiverse child who, as frequently happens, went undiagnosed. As a result, he faced a series of circumstances in school, from which he experienced quite severe trauma, and he eventually became a school avoider. I want to stress that I know the mum of that family; they are good parents who have given up a huge amount for their child, and indeed they have a second child with special educational needs. The threat of fines does nothing to help them or their child, and it just adds stress on to stress.

I want to take a little time to go deeper into that story, which I heard only today. That parent was taken into school and told, “Right, we need to talk about fines. We are going to take you down the court process.” The threat of court was used against the parents, and as the child was having significant problems, when they tried to get him into school, he would have a meltdown. As we have all seen, if a parent is dealing with a very young child who does not want to do something, that child kicks and lashes out. The teacher saw the child being violent to their parents and it was even suggested that they use the youth offender system with a primary school child. They do not need that sort of stress. In the parent support group my constituent was given advice—and other parents report this too—such as, “Try making your home life more miserable so that they want to go to school.” That indicates the experience of parents who are fighting to do the best by their child, with children who do not want to go to school. They are just trying their best to manage, and the fines system is causing supreme difficulty for them.

I was a teacher for 30 years, so I know what it is like from the teacher’s perspective. When there is absenteeism teachers have to try to catch up a child who has been away while still trying to teach the other children and bring them forward. There are the gifted and talented children who are flying ahead, the children who need more direct support, and then there is the child who has been absent for two weeks and is saying, “I don’t understand anything, Miss, what’s going on?” It is really challenging, so I understand the perspective of the school. The education system and the teachers want the other children as well as that child to get the best possible education, but it is challenging to work in those environments. I see that side of things.

I have also seen countless children and parents struggling with attendance, not because the child just does not want to go to school, but as part of a more complex and unique set of needs that cannot be solved with fines. For those parents, especially those on lower incomes for whom the fines will be more damaging, there must be exceptions. With 30% of children in my constituency living in relative poverty—again, above the national average—the whole fine and court process is too punitive. Having to travel at expensive times is difficult.

The process does not produce the intended outcome of improving attendance. It taxes an already overwhelmed system, and places further burdens on those who need support, not punishment. We need a balanced approach that tackles those who take their children out for unwarranted reasons—I understand that—but that supports families who are struggling to best help their children. Sometimes that means taking them outside school in schooltime, to have a break and some respite—it is not a holiday; it is a period of respite. I therefore support the principle of the petition.

Primary School Breakfast Clubs

Allison Gardner Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Dhesi]

My hon. Friend speaks with a great deal of experience. I have seen over the last seven or eight years in the House that she has done a great deal of work to counter poverty and some of the worst problems that our society faces. Everything should be evidence based. It is important that the Government build on that to help our communities further.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

As a biologist and teacher, I believe that linking breakfast clubs with dental hygiene practices will have a significant impact on the long-term health of our children, and indeed of our adult population, and eventually on the NHS and our economy. Does my hon. Friend agree?

[Mr Dhesi]

I fully agree. My hon. Friend also speaks from experience. I can see many teachers present, and people who are a lot more knowledgeable than I am. I thank her for her contribution. I hope that all Members’ contributions will be considered by the Government, because of the far-reaching impact that their suggestions would have.

As the MP for Slough, I have a particular interest in this matter, which is why I applied for the debate, and I am grateful to the House authorities for granting it. A quarter of my constituents are under the age of 15, which is why I say that we are the youth capital of Britain. Sadly, however, 21% of children in Slough live in relative poverty, and 14% live in absolute poverty. Nearly 7,000 are eligible for free school meals, and the roll-out of breakfast clubs will provide thousands of my Slough constituents with a better start in life.

Educational Opportunities

Allison Gardner Excerpts

Wednesday 13th November 2024 Westminster Hall

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Mr Pritchard. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Tony Vaughan) for securing this important debate.

I want to focus on the importance of the fabric of the buildings in which we deliver our educational opportunities, and on one particular school in my constituency of Stoke-on-Trent South—Trentham academy. I have been a teacher for 30 years, and I was astonished at what I saw when I visited recently. I met the headteacher, Mr Mike Whittingham, to discuss the Trentham academy estate and to see for myself the challenges that it has faced.

I will say at the outset that Trentham is an excellent school. It has achieved a “good” Ofsted rating, with “outstanding” in some areas, and it is highly oversubscribed. The 750-capacity school already has more than 790 pupils, and last year it received 580 applications for new students as the first choice of parents. It delivers excellent education. It has a strong ethos, the teachers are smiling and it is a great little school, so when I visited I could not have been more shocked at the state of it. There are rotting floors and mould in some classrooms. There are annual rat infestations, with fly infestations following. Rats and other vermin have repeatedly fallen into classrooms, into teachers’ hair and, worst of all, into their cups of tea, which is enough of an excuse in itself to rebuild the school.

There are only five female toilet cubicles, three male cubicles and 11 cubicles in a unisex toilet, which I would not enter—not because it is unisex, but because it is just not fit for purpose. It is technically against building regulations, and the disabled accessible toilets are inadequate. Legislation says that there must be one toilet per 20 pupils. Trentham academy currently has one toilet per 40 pupils, and I would not go in some of those. I could continue. Another issue is the poor fire doors and the real fire safety risks.

I welcome the school rebuilding fund, with £2.4 billion for school maintenance and £1.4 billion for school rebuilding. I ask the Minister merely for the money to rebuild the school, and I assure her that we will deliver a cracking school with great education, and fill the desperate need for extra secondary school places in Stoke-on-Trent.

Higher Education: Staffordshire

Allison Gardner Excerpts

Wednesday 9th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Adam Jogee]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention—it would not be an Adjournment debate without it. He raises an important point that I will come to later in my remarks. It is not just the financial pressures that young people face that have an impact on their mental health. Other pressures include the inability to secure affordable, accessible and safe places to live, as well as trying to keep down a job and study at the same time, which is pushed and caused by some of the financial pressures that he referred to. I thank him for his kind comments—I am not sure whether that is better for his street cred or for mine, but I take the compliment.

The “Keele in Town” programme will see an empty 19th century building, in the heart of Newcastle-under-Lyme town centre, made into a mixed-use facility for the community. I have already touched on this, but it is important. It will have meeting spaces offering digital connectivity to the community, helping to drive productivity and boost skill levels. The programme includes working with our brilliant local FE institutions.

[Dr Allison Gardner (Stoke-on-Trent South) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing the debate and promoting my ex-employer, Keele University, which is an interest I declare. I recently had the great honour of visiting the Burslem campus of the prestigious Stoke-on-Trent College, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (David Williams), to meet with apprentices, including inspirational young people such as Robbie and superb employers such as Carson Powell Construction. Does my hon. Friend agree that apprenticeships, including degree-level apprenticeships, provide an excellent alternative route for young people and career changers to access higher education, in our FE colleges and universities, and that such apprenticeships provide a real benefit to our local employers and economies, by developing the workplace skills of the future?

[Adam Jogee]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. In previous years she has worked and lived in Newcastle-under-Lyme, so she understands the power and importance that the issue has for a wider north Staffordshire family.

I was talking about the excellent Newcastle college, which is further education rather than higher education, but it is important because it is from there that our wonderful institutions at Staffordshire and Keele get their young people. I was there last Friday, presenting the student of the month awards and meeting young people who look forward to staying in Staffordshire for university.

Let us focus on students for a minute. In 2022-23, 34,535 students enrolled for a degree at a higher education provider in Staffordshire. These are young people to whom we will be looking for leadership and inspiration in the years ahead. Following our departure from the European Union, the proportion of EU students in Staffordshire has decreased, while the proportion of overseas students has more than tripled, from 2.3% to 7.8%. That speaks to the challenges facing the sector not just in Staffordshire but right across Great Britain.