Maintained Schools: Term Dates

Baroness Barran Excerpts

Monday 9th December 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right: if children are not in school, they cannot learn. Although levels of absenteeism are marginally better this year than last, they are still considerably worse than before the pandemic, with around 1.6 million children—more than one in five—missing at least one day per fortnight. This is why we need a wide-ranging approach to tackling absenteeism. We need to build on the detailed data we now have available to us. We need to expect schools to focus, before a child becomes persistently absent, on the reasons why they are absent and what intervention may be necessary. We need schools to learn from those who are tacking this issue much more effectively. We are investing £15 million in expanding the specialist attendance mentoring programme for persistently absent pupils. We need to make sure that the new guidance issued in August is being followed appropriately, because this is a fundamental issue on which we need to make progress. Children need to be in school in order to learn, and in order to prevent the disruption to others in class that happens when children are absent.

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

My Lords, we on these Benches support the flexibility that academies enjoy, and we trust the discretion of trust and school leaders in how they make their decisions. With that in mind, we are extremely concerned that the Employment Rights Bill will cut across those freedoms and potentially create a ceiling, rather than a floor, in terms and conditions of employment for teaching assistants and support staff more widely. Can the Minister reassure the House that this will not happen?

[Baroness Smith of Malvern (Lab)]

Some enormously good work has been done by academies and maintained schools on using teaching and non-teaching staff to ensure that children are getting a good education. None of it, as far as I can see, depends on them having in place inadequate, discriminatory or undermining employment conditions for their support staff. I do not see why providing a suitable and appropriate basis for people’s employment should in any way undermine the excellent work being done by our schools.