Times Education Commission Report

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Thursday 13th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Education (Baroness Barran) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lord Lexden for securing this important debate, all Members of your Lordships’ House who were involved in the Times Education Commission and the wider membership of the commission, and all of your Lordships for the insight and ideas in the debate today. My noble friend set a challenge in terms of vision and ambition, which I welcome warmly.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, talked about a gulf between government policy and the ambition in the commission’s report. As she says—I will probably misquote her—I hope, but am not confident, that I will reassure her that the gulf is not quite as she fears. Over the last 12 years, this Government have committed to supporting all children and young people to realise their potential. The Times Education Commission suggests that change is needed, and I am grateful for the opportunity to set out how the Government are certainly delivering on many of the elements of change that are highlighted in this report.

My noble friend Lord Baker was extremely critical of our current education system, but I remind the House that it has made a huge amount of progress over the last 10 years, particularly when compared internationally. England has received the highest ever score in both the most recent international reading literacy study and the most recent Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study. I hope noble Lords will acknowledge that, because many of the comments in your Lordships’ House might have suggested otherwise. Furthermore, the OECD’s Programme for International Student Assessment showed that 15 year-olds in England performed above the OECD averages for all reading, maths and science subjects, which all your Lordships have stressed the importance of.

In the decade before the pandemic, we drove improvements across the board. Some 87% of schools are now rated as good or outstanding, which is up from 68% in 2010. We are not quite at the ambition of the noble Lord, Lord Storey, of no schools either being inadequate or requiring improvement, but I reassure him that the chart on the wall in my office is of those schools and we monitor it every month to make sure that the number is coming down.

Pre-pandemic results show that, in 2019, 65% of key stage 2 pupils reached the expected standard in all of reading, writing and maths, which was a seven percentage-point increase in reading and a nine percentage-point increase in maths since 2016. Of course, as noble Lords have rightly pointed out and as the Government, our children, our teachers and our schools are all too aware, the pandemic has set us back, but the latest post-pandemic results for 2022 show that 59% of key stage 2 pupils met the expected standard in all of reading, writing and maths.

As noble Lords know, to address that, we have announced almost £5 billion for an ambitious multi-year educational recovery plan, and earlier this year we published the schools White Paper, in which we set out our bold vision for education to 2030, which is built on four pillars: higher standards, system reform, greater recognition of teachers, and targeted support for students as the foundation of education recovery and social mobility or, as, the noble Lord, Lord Watson prefers to describe it, social justice—let us have both. I will discuss each of those pillars in turn and how they address the commission’s recommendations.

As many noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Lexden and the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, have commented, the commission recommends the creation of a new British baccalaureate. As I told this House in June, the Government have transformed the quality of academic and technical qualifications over the past decade. We have reformed GCSEs and A-levels to ensure that they are in line with the world’s highest-performing education systems and to support all young people to achieve their potential. We have introduced T-levels with 45 days’ work experience, which I hope pleases all noble Lords; in particular, that was a point raised by the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare. There are other reforms in train, but we currently have no plans to introduce a British baccalaureate.

A number of noble Lords, including my noble friend Lord Willetts and the noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Rees, asked about the narrowing of the curriculum. We are aware that there are trade-offs between the depth of the curriculum and its breadth, as all your Lordships understand. We are very clear that young people should be able to access a broad and balanced knowledge-rich curriculum up to the age of 16. We want pupils to leave school prepared in the widest sense for adult life. The acquisition of knowledge is the basic building block of education to which all pupils should have fair access, and a knowledge-based curriculum can stimulate critical thinking and inquiry skills that can be taught only in the context of solid subject content.

I will absolutely take back to the department the very thoughtful contributions from your Lordships about where they see the potential to broaden or reinforce the curriculum as it stands today. But as I was listening to your Lordships, I thought that we are moving from a world with a choice between breadth and depth to one where, as we have heard, not just in this country but all across the world, the skills required in employment are evolving over time. We have a sort of three-way pull of breadth, depth and flexibility/longevity. I will come on to talk about the lifelong loan entitlement but I know that your Lordships support it as an important way forward to achieving that longevity and flexibility of education.

We will introduce the lifelong loan entitlement from 2025 and people will be able to train, retrain and upskill by undertaking modules or full courses at higher technical and degree levels, regardless of whether these are provided in colleges or universities. I hope that goes some way to addressing the points raised by the noble Lords, Lord Shipley and Lord Rees of Ludlow.

The noble Lord, Lord Watson, asked for an update on the LLE consultation. As he knows, it closed on 6 May. It covered a number of areas, including the ambition and coverage, along with aspects such as maintenance support, which he raised. We are currently going through those contributions and will publish our response in due course; the same applies to the minimum eligibility requirements consultation.

To enable system reform, we have delivered the biggest funding boost for schools in a decade and continue to deliver year on year, real-terms per-pupil increases to funding. We share the commission’s enthusiasm for the potential for technology to improve learner outcomes and reduce workload for teachers, which is why we are building on our huge investment, made during the pandemic, of nearly 2 million laptops and tablets. We are making sure that every school can access a high-speed broadband connection by 2025 and investing up to £150 million to improve school wi-fi in priority areas, which will support schools to meet our new standards for technology.

The noble Lords, Lord Storey and Lord Davies of Brixton, raised the recommendation in the commission’s report regarding Ofsted: it proposed that Ofsted should focus on sustained improvement. We believe that Ofsted’s education inspection framework, which took effect in 2019, does exactly that. It encourages leaders and teachers to focus on the intent, implementation and impact of their curriculum. As I mentioned, the proportion of schools rated good or outstanding has improved substantially, from 68% in 2010 to 87% in 2021.

The commission also called for improvements in the status of teaching, which the noble Lord, Lord Storey, supported. As part of the schools White Paper, we announced £30,000 as the starting salary to attract the very best teachers, with additional incentives to work in the schools with most need. I think the noble Lord spent his teaching career in Liverpool; I am on the 7.07 am train to Liverpool tomorrow to see some of the work going on there. I really would like to set the record straight about what the Government are doing. We are bringing in some of the best multi-academy trusts so that their expertise is brought to areas which, as the noble Lord knows, have failed children for too long.

Returning to the teaching profession, we will provide better professional development for teachers, with 500,000 training and development opportunities, such as the early careers framework and the refreshed national professional qualifications, so that all teachers and school leaders can access world-class professional development at every stage of their career.

We believe that our Green Paper, published in March, closely mirrors the report’s recommendations for greater support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities. The reforms in the Green Paper focus on earlier identification and support for teachers, as well as on making sure that children are supported to manage their needs early and, in relation to alternative provision, that we reduce preventable exclusions as much as possible. We are also providing more training in areas fundamental to high-quality teaching, such as behaviour management, adaptive teaching and curriculum design, which will help teachers support all pupils to succeed.

The noble Lord, Lord Addington, asked me for an update on next steps on the SEND Green Paper. We will publish our response to the consultation via our improvement plan by the end of this year. The noble Lord also asked about accessibility to technology for students with special educational needs, particularly dyslexia. I think the noble Lord is aware of our pilot for assistive technology training, which took place in 74 schools between January and March 2022. We are extending that training to increase staff confidence when using assistive technology.

The commission calls for an “electives premium” and recommends that well-being is put at the heart of education—the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, raised this in particular. To support cultural enrichment, the Government published the national plan for music education in June and will publish a cultural education plan in 2023. This will include our support for young people who pursue careers in our creative and cultural industries. We continue to build on our high-quality citizenship education by supporting the national youth guarantee, promoting volunteering and expanding access to the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award and cadet schemes. On that note, I echo my noble friend Lord Lexden’s call for greater collaboration between independent schools and maintained schools. In my capacity as Minister in that area, I support that but would be glad of more advice from my noble friend on how we can progress it further.

The commission calls for undergraduate tutors to help pupils who fall behind in their learning. We are addressing this issue through our National Tutoring Programme, which allows schools to decide how to provide this support and has already delivered over 1 million tutoring courses since November 2020. We believe that this is set to rise to 6 million by 2024.

We agree that physical and mental well-being is a key enabler for children to benefit from their time in school. That is why we are building on the additional £79 million invested in specialist mental health support for children and young people during the pandemic by accelerating the introduction of mental health support teams that provide extra capacity for early support and advising school staff.

On early years support, the noble Lords, Lord Davies of Brixton and Lord Rees of Ludlow, and the noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, emphasised the importance of giving our children the best start in life. To do that, we have invested over £3.5 billion in each of the last three years in our early education entitlements for children aged two to four. In October 2021, we announced additional funding of £160 million in 2022-23, £180 million the following year and £170 million in 2024-25. This is for local authorities to increase hourly rates paid to childcare providers and reflects changes in the number of eligible children anticipated at the time of the spending review.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chapman, asked if I would acknowledge that, in any reformed childcare, we need to consider that we do not end up excluding providers and creating even more pressure in the market. Of course she makes a very good point, which will be considered. She also asked about progress on the Schools Bill. The legislative agenda is under review, and I will update the House in due course.

I think that the House acknowledges that we have introduced ambitious, long-term structural reforms to give people the skills they need to get good jobs and to boost productivity across the country. They will put employers at the heart of skills training and education; reform incentives for providers to deliver high-quality provision; and enable learners to take up skills training and education over their lifetimes. Those might be three clauses in one sentence, but I know that your Lordships know that there is an enormous challenge—and opportunity—in delivering that. All this is underpinned by a £3.8 billion investment in further education and skills across this Parliament.

The noble Lords, Lord Knight and Lord Rees, and my noble friend Lord Willetts all talked about the potential for technology to contribute to our education system. We absolutely agree with that; I share their enthusiasm on this point. On 25 May, we announced that the Open University will partner with further education providers to offer more high-quality technical education to tackle cold spots in provision.

We also share the report’s ambition to establish elite technical and vocational provision with close links to industry. In response to the comments from the noble Lord, Lord Shipley, I say that this is why we are establishing a network of 21 institutes of technology across England for post-16 learners. These are prestigious, employer-led institutions that will bring together technical, vocational and industry partners to deliver higher-level technical skills, particularly in STEM-based sectors, including digital, advanced manufacturing, engineering and construction.

I am out of time, so I will cover in a letter the points I have not managed to cover here. I will look back over this debate in Hansard to ensure that I have really acknowledged all noble Lords’ contributions. Like the authors of the Times Education Commission, all of us here are committed to delivering an education system that gives everyone opportunities to thrive and realise their potential, no matter where they live across the country. It may be above my pay grade to be able to organise a royal commission—as my noble friend suggested—but we remain open to discussion, ideas and challenges for improvement. However, as a Government, we also need to focus to deliver the potential of the major changes we are making, particularly to skills and lifelong learning.