Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Ninth sitting)

Debate between Amanda Martin and Patrick Spencer

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Martin]

No, I had finished—I do not know why the hon. Member intervened.

[Patrick Spencer]

I will not bore everyone with another rendition of the credit of non-QTS teachers. I will just say that I spent Friday at Debenham high school. When I spoke to the headteacher, he sighed in frustration at suddenly having to look down the barrel and find qualified status for his language teachers. He has a Spanish teacher who works at the high school who he will now to need to train. I know we are having an argument about immigration policy in this country, but trying to stop foreign teachers coming to this country and teaching in schools in Suffolk is not how the problem will be solved.

My point is about costs. A Policy Exchange report suggested that getting all non-QTS teachers trained was going to cost in excess of £120 million—six times the budget that the Government have allocated to solving stuck schools, and six times the budget we are going to spend on getting teachers to jump over regulatory barriers. So can the Minister confirm the estimated cost of getting teachers qualified status and whether the Department will cover that cost, or will the Government just end up burdening schools with the cost of getting over this regulatory hurdle?

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Tenth sitting)

Debate between Amanda Martin and Patrick Spencer

Committee stage
Tuesday 4th February 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

I had a long speech prepared, but it does not include Keats, Semmelweis or Callaghan, so I will cut it short. Teachers want to be trusted to teach, to read their class and to choose what to teach, when to teach and how to teach it. My concern is that the Government are bringing all schools under the same framework and that that will allow them to fundamentally change what is taught in schools.

We have all read the news about the Becky Francis review trying to broaden the curriculum, dumb it down, dilute it and move it away from a knowledge-rich focus. Will the Minister confirm the Government’s intention to retain the national curriculum’s focus on knowledge, and the attainment of knowledge, as opposed to skills? I know she will say that the Francis review has not reported, but the Government have no statutory obligation to accept its recommendations. Will Ministers please confirm that they want to keep the national curriculum focused on knowledge and core knowledge subjects?

It is clear that the intention is for all schools to teach the national curriculum. Can the Minister assure me, and thousands of teachers who want to do the best for their students, that the curriculum will be kept broad to allow them to teach as they see fit, in the best interests of their students? Again, the Government do not have to follow the guidance from the Becky Francis review.

What has been proven over time is that the current framework works for academies. I will keep saying this in the Committee: academies have been proven to produce better results for children who come from a low-performing or failing state school—they have been proven to do much better for children in the long term. [Interruption.] They have; that is what the evidence says.

[Amanda Martin (Portsmouth North) (Lab)]

I hope you are enjoying the debate, Sir Christopher. Although national curriculum reform is not mentioned in the Bill, it is going forward.

The previous Government introduced a number of curriculum changes. Those were often implemented quickly and not considerate of the profession. In 2010, one or two years were given to implement the changes, depending on sector. The consultation was top-down and was criticised for not reflecting classroom realities. In 2013, the Government had one year to implement the changes. There was a wider consultation, but despite that the original proposals were unchanged. In 2016, there were almost immediate changes to the curriculum, but, again, no fundamental changes were made to the original proposals after the consultation. In 2019, there was one year for implementation, and in 2020 and 2021 the changes were immediate, albeit that that was linked to the fallout from covid and the attempts to rectify that. Again, some changes involved input from the profession, and some did not.

A national curriculum should do what it says on the tin and be a “national” curriculum. It should have a core basis. We should consult the profession. I found it really difficult to sit here and listen to the ideas that have been put forward, when the previous Government did absolutely none of that.

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)

Debate between Amanda Martin and Patrick Spencer

Committee stage
Tuesday 21st January 2025 Public Bill Committees

[Amanda Martin]

Yes.

Sir Jon Coles: I suppose everything we do addresses trying to tackle the gap. We take on schools in areas of severe deprivation, places where schools have failed, where children are not succeeding. We look to turn those schools around. I guess my starting point for this is that we do already, in the overwhelming majority of cases, work with local authorities on admissions. None of our schools change their admission arrangements when they become academies. We stick with the pre-existing admission arrangements, unless we are asked by the local authority to do something different. That is our fundamental starting point for everything we do. As I said, I do not have concerns about the provisions around admissions; we are basically happy with them. If the Government issue guidance on how those are to be used, I think other people’s concerns will go away as well.

The one thing that I would love to see the Government do is really set out their strategy for improvement, how they think things will work and how we will drive improvement across the system. I think part of the reason for response to the Bill has been that the Government have not published a policy document ahead of publication, so people have read into the Bill their concerns and fears and worries. There has not been a clear Government narrative about how the Bill will drive forward improvements in the school system overall and how we are going to tackle the achievement gaps.

We want to work with Government. We want to work with local authorities—we already work with local authorities and other trusts and maintained schools. We want to do that. We think we are all on the same team trying to do the right thing for children. Our worry about some provisions in the Bill is really just a concern that in future we might be prevented from doing things that we do that we know are effective.

Sir Dan Moynihan: On the disadvantage gap, the biggest thing was the coalition’s introduction of an explicit strategy focusing on disadvantage, and they introduced a pupil premium. It was highly effective for probably five years, then withered and disappeared. The Government, in my view, need an explicit strategy for tackling disadvantage, whether that is a pupil premium that is higher or whether it is metrics. That is not something that we have seen for a long time and not something that we have yet seen in the new Government, but it is a door that is wide open. The system wants that. That is the clearest thing: making it a Government priority.

The second thing for me, to be a bit more controversial, is that good schools should reflect their local area. Sometimes that does not happen, including for many selective schools. If we are really going to have a world-class system, that needs to be addressed.

Luke Sparkes: I do not have anything of significance to add. We try to work as closely as we can with local authorities. In north Liverpool, for example, we took on a school that would have closed had we not taken it on. We take on the most challenging schools and try to do the very best we can for disadvantaged children.

[Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)]

Q You spoke about the importance of intent and accountability in driving school improvement, yet the Bill tilts the balance back towards giving responsibility to local authorities, and ultimately to Sanctuary Buildings the role of school improvement. Does that concern you? Do you think local authorities can do the same job as a multi-academy trust in turning schools around?

Sir Jon Coles: That is a very tendentious way of describing the Bill. I think you would struggle to substantiate that. To give you my perspective, whatever this Bill does, I am still going to be accountable for running the schools that we are accountable for running. They will still be in the trust. I will still be line-managing the heads. We will still be accountable for their performance. We will still be accountable for teaching and learning.