Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Evans of Bowes Park Excerpts

Tuesday 20th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Humphreys (LD)]

My Lords, I add my name to those welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Blunkett, to his place in this House. In doing so, I want to say how grateful I am to your Lordships for allowing me to speak in the gap and for the opportunity to take part in this debate. At this late stage in the proceedings, I will keep my contribution relatively brief and restrict my comments to the education sections of the Bill. I will also be posing a few questions for the Minister to consider as I go along.

As a former teacher, I always welcome moves to attempt to improve the performance of pupils, teachers and schools, and, at first glance, these attempts to define and improve failing and coasting schools may have some merit. However, I join many colleagues from this side of the House in expressing a certain amount of scepticism. Are these moves a genuine effort to improve standards in our state schools or are they another step on the road to achieving the Government’s ideological ambition of complete academisation of the education system in England? The Bill presents a significant increase in the powers of the Secretary of State to intervene in schools and, in a great many respects, diminishes the powers of local authorities.

At this point, I should like to comment on one of the Government’s proposed measures for defining coasting and inadequate schools. I have always had some doubts about the value of the five A* to C GCSE grades as a means of judging the performance of schools, although, as a gold standard, it probably gives a headline impression of a school. However, I have to admit to a certain amount of approval of one of the Government’s assessment measures: the Progress 8 measure. Based on students’ progress across their eight best subjects and using key stage 2 results in English and Maths as a baseline, this measure gives a far clearer indication of a student’s attainment across their secondary school career. The measure includes a double-weighted GCSE mathematics component and a double-weighted English component, and I welcome the inclusion of the three highest grades from the EBacc subjects studied. These can be science subjects, computer science, geography, history and languages.

However, for me, the most welcome aspect of this measure is the inclusion of the best three grades from any of the remaining subjects included in the “open group”—a group which, importantly, can include three vocational subjects. This gives a far fairer indication of the pupil’s progress and of the progress of the school in educating the child as a whole. It also gives a far clearer indication of the breadth of the curriculum within the school. Perhaps most importantly, it gives an indication of the success of a school in preparing pupils for the next stages of education.

I talked earlier about the Secretary of State’s powers of intervention in failing and coasting schools. It is estimated that there could be some 2,000 such schools across England. I would be interested in knowing from the Minister the cost of supporting schools where it is deemed necessary to intervene, the cost of the regional schools commissioners and the boards of head teachers which will be necessary to assist them, and the cost of converting the remaining schools into academies—and, indeed, whether the capacity exists within the academy system to deliver all this. The commissioners are responsible for more than 4,000 academies, 141—

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

The noble Baroness has spoken for three minutes.

[Baroness Humphreys]

I am sorry. Perhaps I may just finish my sentence. How will the commissioners cope with the extra responsibilities that they will have?