Funding and Schools Reform
Andrew Turner Excerpts(13 years, 6 months ago)
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Pat Glass (North West Durham) (Lab)
I realise that time is short, so I have cut down enormously on what I was going to say. I shall stick to the main points. I have been privileged to spend most of my career in education. I know how schools operate, unlike most of those on the Government Front Bench, and I am therefore in the privileged position of being able to comment on the Government’s proposals and on how they are likely to impact on schools and on outcomes for children.
Given my background, I will always approach education reforms not from an ideological standpoint but from the standpoint of whether they will improve schools and outcomes for children, especially poor and vulnerable children, and those with additional difficulties, in constituencies such as mine. The question for me is whether the Government’s reforms will continue the many different improvements that we have seen, or whether they will act as an anchor on talent and aptitude.
I find it inconceivable that any Government could consider allowing just about anyone to open a free school in any type of building, without outdoor play areas, recreational space, or qualified teachers. I am sure the Secretary of State will be aware of the recent Institute of Education report, which clearly demonstrates that the more time a child spends with a support assistant, as opposed to a teacher, the less progress that child will make. It is the strength of the pedagogical environment, the specialist knowledge of the subject and the confidence and quality of the teaching experience that deliver progress. That can only come from a qualified teacher working in a qualified environment.
Pat Glass
I am sorry, but we have very little time.
The Government are proposing a relaxation of the accountability framework in schools, so that academies and schools judged to be outstanding will be inspected only every seven years. I have to ask whether that is going to improve outcomes for schools. I have many criticisms of Ofsted, but I do not criticise its relentless pursuit of an upward trajectory in school improvement. We are all swiftest when we are chased, and that applies as much to head teachers, teachers and schools as to anything or anyone else.
The Government are seeking to abolish independent appeals panels for exclusions. I understand from my discussions with schools that that is not what they want. Head teachers and chairs of governing bodies are telling me that, while it can be very uncomfortable to appear before those independent panels, they provide valuable checks and balances in the system. The heads and chairs are concerned that, without them, they could find themselves defending their actions in court. That would not be good for schools.
The Government are also proposing a national funding formula that is distributed from central Government. However, I am more concerned with what that resource will drive into schools than with where it comes from or who delivers it. The Prime Minister and the Secretary of State have repeatedly said that they will protect schools funding, but when asked direct questions, they have given very few direct answers. I was pleased to hear the Minister of State, Department for Education, the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) advise the Education Committee this morning that schools budgets would grow by subsuming the standards fund and the educational needs grant into the baseline, and that they would be increased by the pupil premium. If that is true, it is welcome. However, the Secretary of State needs to know that I will be checking out the position with schools in my constituency when they get their budgets in December, and if those schools, which educate some of the most deprived children in the country, have less money next year than they have this year, I will be his worst nightmare.
The Secretary of State is an English graduate, and he is fond of coming to the House and lecturing us on the teaching of history. I want to give him a lesson from my end of the curriculum. Unlike politics and philosophy, maths is an absolute science. I shall start with an easy equation. If schools in the poorest communities receive less funding next year than they did this year, and if we add that to more unemployment and poverty as a result of Government cuts, that will equal poorer standards and outcomes, not better ones.
I have looked at the reforms very carefully, and if they are going to produce better outcomes for schools, I will welcome them. However, it is my considered view that they will lead to improved outcomes for some children but poorer outcomes for most. The strapline of this Government will be less “Every child matters” and more “Actually, some children don’t matter very much at all”. That would be a tragedy for the majority of children and schools in this country. The Government appear to be following an ideological experiment with other people’s children, and it is the poorest and the most vulnerable who will lose out most.
Academies Bill [Lords]
Andrew Turner Excerpts(13 years, 10 months ago)
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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 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.
Oral Answers to Questions
Andrew Turner Excerpts(13 years, 11 months ago)
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Mr Andrew Turner (Isle of Wight) (Con)
10. What recent assessment he has made of the level of participation by primary schools in the academies programme; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
There are currently 23 all-age academies open that include primary provision. The Academies Bill will also open up the academies programme allowing all primary schools to apply to become academies in their own right. There has been a very high level of interest from schools with more than 250 outstanding primary schools already registering with the Department. We expect the first of those schools with an “outstanding” rating from Ofsted to open as academies from September 2010.
Mr Turner
The Minister may recall that in the early years of grant-maintained status, secondary schools were able to opt out, but primary schools had to wait, although subsequently they found that the operation was relatively easy. Will he ensure that, this time, primary schools have the opportunity as quickly as other schools?
Mr Gibb
My hon. Friend will be pleased to see in the Academies Bill, which is receiving its Second Reading in another place, that primaries will be able to apply for academy status. Indeed, the 250 outstanding primaries that have registered an interest with the Department will be fast-tracked to that status by, I hope, this September.