Academies Bill [Lords]

Andrew Turner Excerpts

Monday 19th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ward]

Hence the pupil premium. Parental involvement —my next point—is very important too.

There is nothing to stop a school having all the things that I mentioned. It does not have to be a faith school, a maintained school, an academy, a grant-maintained school or a foundation school. A point not previously raised, although I think the hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Glenda Jackson) touched on it, is that everything that I have mentioned will produce a school with high achievement, but not necessarily a school with high attainment. There is a difference between the two.

As I said, it is simple to determine what makes a successful school, but it is not always easy. Apart from parental involvement, everything that I have talked about relates to school level variables—the school and what it can actually deliver—but pupil level variables determine attainment in the school. We seem to have common agreement about the need for a pupil premium to support schools serving deprived communities, but why not give it a chance in those schools? Is it not premature to look at the structure yet again, before we have seen what the additional funding can do to raise attainment in those schools?

[Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there are poor schools in good areas and good schools in poor areas? It is much more than the relationship that he has talked about.

[Mr Ward]

Without doubt there are exceptions to the rule, and we need to learn best practice wherever it resides, but powerful opposing forces work against all schools being in the educational utopia that is described by the ingredients for high achievement. Bradford has 200 schools—special, primary and secondary. We shall not get 200 great head teachers; it will not happen.

Another force working against that utopia is how schools are judged. In most cases, they are judged on attainment, and although we often pay lip service to contextual value added, that is not how schools are actually evaluated. Because of the system, schools are in competition. They do not like being in competition, but they are in competition over who is recruited to which school.

How can we bring about change in struggling schools? Only with very great difficulty. Some of the measures are impatient, but it requires hard slog in struggling schools to put in place the ingredients required to turn them around. How much simpler to set up a new school with all the ingredients in place, including the great new head teacher. But where will the great new head teachers come from? They will come from other schools, where they may have been needed because those schools served deprived communities. If a teacher gets the same pay—or even, in these new schools, more pay—why on earth would they go in every morning to work in a school serving a deprived community for less money? Teachers’ conditions of service need to change if we are to make the most of the pupil premium, so I welcome that flexibility.

More important than anything else in terms of attainment, resources and how a school is judged, is the intake of the school. Why do people want academies? There must be a reason. It is because they think they will get something new. If it is simply about flexibility in the national curriculum, why not give it to all schools? If it is about flexibility in teachers’ conditions of service, why not give that to all schools? People want academies—whether or not they admit it—because by one means or another they want to change the intake of the school. If everything was made available for every school, for what reason would they want to set up an academy?

[Mr Turner]

May I suggest that one other reason might be to get away from the control of the local council? That is why people want academies.

[Mr Ward]

On local authorities controlling schools, I do not know where the hon. Gentleman has been for the last 20 years. It does not happen now. Money is passported straight to schools. If he has an issue with support services, he should get his councillors to sort it out. The local authority should be providing quality services to schools.