Education Bill

Baroness Garden of Frognal Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Jones of Whitchurch]

My Lords, I want to make a couple of comments. First, much of the anxiety about the current grading system is because people have lost confidence in the way that the examinations are marked at the moment. I remember that, when I was doing O-levels and such-like many moons ago, there was much more confidence in the marking system and the legitimacy and accuracy of the examination boards. Maybe that was misplaced but that was certainly how I was brought up. Perhaps the scandals in recent times about the quality of the marking and so on have raised concerns and people want to dig deeper to know the underlying marks, which is understandable.

I am anxious, however, as to how this would work in practice. If the grades and the marks are published and if some children will only be two or three marks below the next grade up, if you run that parallel system of marks and grades, you will engender a lot of new appeals because anyone who is a short step away from the next grade up will flood the market with appeals. Unless we have a mechanism for managing that, therefore, there will be more discontent than satisfaction. I am not sure the system can run in parallel in the way the noble Lord is proposing. It may be, however, that the famous e-mail, which I should have seen but have not, spells out what the Government intend and will satisfy those points.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, my noble friend has made strong arguments for making comprehensive, transparent information on exam results and school performance available to all and we are committed to increasing the amount of information available so that people can build their own measures and reach their own views about progress in the education system. We have already published more information than ever before.

The 2010 tables enabled users to download the school-level data underlying the table so that they could carry out their own analyses. In January 2011, school spending data were published alongside performance information. In March 2011, we published school-level information on attainment in individual GCSE subjects. As has been stated, in relation to exam marks, the candidates do have the right to request their marks. In practice, awarding bodies do provide marks—and, where requested, exam scripts—to schools and candidates. That means, for instance, universities can ask applicants to provide individual marks in order to differentiate performance within a grade.

In relation to publication of marks in data sets, we want to make as much information as possible available about exam results, and we are happy to commit to considering the practicality of obtaining and publishing marks as part of the national school-level data we are releasing. I understand my noble friend will be speaking to officials about this at a meeting on 25 July.

However, as the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, has said, there will be practical issues that we need to consider. Collecting individual marks rather than just grades would mean a significant increase in the quantity of data that the department would need to collect and process, which we would need to ensure we could manage without undue cost. That said, although it is the Government’s intention to collect and publish as much information on qualifications as we can, in relation to having both marks and grades it is the case that the same mark on a harder paper would represent better performance and it would not always be fair to candidates simply to add up the raw marks to give the overall result. A uniform mark scale puts all those raw marks on the same scale, which is then converted into the grade boundaries.

The noble Baroness, Lady Jones, mentioned confidence in exam awarding bodies. Ofqual was established by the previous Government to improve and strengthen confidence in the standards of exam awarding bodies. Ensuring that that confidence is restored is what Ofqual has at its heart. It may of course be that our memories of the olden days when everything was so much better have somehow managed to make us feel that it was better; I seem to remember from my days of A-levels that there were still quite a lot of queries to the boards, but we were much more intimidated in making those queries.

I hope that, with the assurance that we will give serious consideration to the practicality of publishing marks as part of the school-level data that we are making available to all, my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[The Earl of Listowel]

I have a quick question. Is there a measure that is easily understood and easily available to judge the progress that schools make in improving a child’s education? The Committee was discussing comparing schools. Is there a quick and easy measure that is easily accessible to say that this school is particularly good at taking children from one level to another, rather than judging all schools by one standard? Does that make sense?

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, the difficulty is that the key stage 2 and key stage 1 data that are published are so coarse. The idea that you can effectively chuck children into one of three pots at the age of 11 and sensibly use that as a measure of anything is not something that I am comfortable with. If there were a better assessment, a teacher assessment, of where children were on a finer scale, you would have something that you could more reliably use to chart progress. Because of the coarseness of the base indicators, you can really only measure these things when large numbers of pupils are involved and the coarseness evens out. At the level of a primary school it is really pretty difficult, but at a big secondary you can get somewhere. Perhaps the Minister has something to add to that. I hope that the Government will consider releasing more and better data as part of what they are doing to improve the value-added indicator, which is a pretty important part of looking at how schools do.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Before my noble friend sits down, the Government are looking at progress reports for schools, which would give a more descriptive picture of where schools were moving.

[Lord Lucas]

I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Lord McAvoy]

The Catholic schools that I know, and which I have the most experience of, incorporate all the various subjects that my noble friend mentions. There is nothing wrong with that. I go and speak to modern studies classes and I assure my noble friend that their opinions are extremely varied. These schools encompass everything. They get involved in fair trade, mission work for Africa and raising funds. They do terrific work based on their faith and it should not be mocked. I believe that if people choose to say that school, home and church are a trinity, they are entitled to do so. I very much oppose the amendments.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Before we continue, I should say that this has been a fascinating debate and I rather sense that we could carry on all afternoon, but I am rather taken with the idea of the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, that we should try to schedule a debate on this topic where we would have more time to discuss it. In the context of scrutinising amendments in Committee, though, I wonder whether we might just hear from the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield who was trying to get in and then move on to the opposition winders. Would that be acceptable to the Committee?

[Noble Lords]

No.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

No?

[The Earl of Listowel]

If I may just interject, strong arguments are being made on all sides but I would like to make one assertion. It is important for children to have some experience of the numinous, of the higher power, of the spiritual life, if you like, in their childhoods, but particularly for some children who have a lot of chaos in their lives. Many young boys, for instance, growing up without fathers, children whose parents are separating or children whose parents suffer from issues around substance misuse do not have a strong sense of belonging to a family. As they go through life, a few of them may enter the care system. Often they move on from there with very little support. A significant number of those who do not have that support from a family may end up falling by the wayside in various ways. For some of them to be able to look back at an experience in their childhood when they felt at one with a group and had some contact with a god or a numinous sense of something beyond themselves, for a few of them in their adult life that may be an important experience where they can look for their own redemption and find somewhere that they can belong, though one means or another.

What concerned me in what the right reverend Prelate said is that we are not really discussing whether there will be one kind of spiritual practice in schools or another. I think that he was saying that if we go along with the amendments, his concern might be that in many schools it will start withering on the vine and there will simply be a formal gathering but not with this spiritual, reflective sense of a contact with a higher power. That may be what he was driving at.

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[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, my name is added to the amendment. I just say to my noble friend that, although I urge him to continue to look kindly on removing the need for licensing from schools and colleges, perhaps this is an opportunity to look more widely at some of the other places where young people need licences, such as small sports clubs, and so on, where if they have even a radio playing in the background, they must get a licence. We need to encourage young people, not make life more difficult for them. I hope that, in their consideration of the issue, the Government will look more widely than simply schools and colleges.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I know that many in this House share my noble friend's view that public performance of music should not be licensable in schools. We agree that schools currently face unnecessary bureaucracy when they organise events such as school plays, concerts or swimming galas, and we are taking steps to address that. We heed the warnings of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, but we have announced our intention to consult on Schedule 1 to the Licensing Act 2003, which currently regulates the public performance of live music and performance of other creative and community activities, such as dance, plays, film and indoor sport. Our intention, subject to the consultation, is to deregulate those activities as far as possible in schools. That is possible through secondary legislation.

The Government have also expressed clear support for the Live Music Bill introduced by my noble friend Lord Clement-Jones, which completed its Committee stage on Friday. I know that, because I was there. It seeks to deregulate in certain circumstances the provision of live, unamplified music in most locations and live, amplified music in workplaces such as schools, as well as licensed premises such as public houses, subject to restrictions on audience size. These planned changes will free schools from the unnecessary bureaucracy they currently face and allow them to use music in a sensible way to deliver the best possible education for their pupils. On the basis of that reassurance, I hope that my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.

[Lord Lucas]

My Lords, I am very content with that reply and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

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[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, education is about helping every child to make progress and reach their full potential, and that includes those pupils who have a high ability or aptitude for learning. There are many ways in which schools can support and challenge those pupils with the highest ability, including, as my noble friend Lord Blackwell pointed out, setting and streaming. Where setting is done well and is regularly reviewed, it can raise standards, and teachers are free to do this. He asked, if it was so good to stream pupils in maths, why it did not happen also in geography. The answer is the numbers taking those particular subjects. You need a critical mass for each subject in order to make streaming an effective tool.

Schools target their resources in the way that they feel will be of most benefit to their pupils. That could include the provision of extracurricular activities or outreach programmes with local universities or colleges. We have removed much of the ring-fencing of funds that restricted schools’ ability to make their own decisions about how to drive their improvement.

Today, in response to the Bew report, we have announced that higher level tests for year 6 pupils will continue to be available for schools to stretch the most able pupils, if they wish. We will consider how to incorporate results from these tests in performance tables to give credit to schools that support their highest attaining pupils. Within a slimmed-down national curriculum, it is possible for schools to design a wider curriculum that best meets the needs of all their pupils: for example, pupils with a particular aptitude for languages taking more language subjects.

My noble friends made the important point about children from disadvantaged backgrounds in particular. One of the key points about the pupil premium, which is given to support schools in helping those pupils, is that we have given schools the freedom on how to spend it. Schools could, therefore, use those funds towards additional support for high-aptitude or high-ability pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to help them succeed. School governing bodies already have a duty to promote high standards of educational achievement and the well-being of all pupils at the school. I hope that my noble friend will understand that we are not attracted to a particular further duty.

In Amendment 107, my noble friend also seeks to promote greater co-operation between schools to provide for the needs of this group of children. We strongly support collaborative working between schools in the interests of their pupils, be those children with a particular interest, aptitude or need. As my noble friend said, there are many positive examples, such as schools providing a particular qualification at one school and pooling their interested pupils so that there are enough to warrant the course. We have had examples of Japanese or some specialist forms of learning where classes can be put together to provide a quorum to follow a particular programme. Schools have the necessary powers and freedoms to do this without new primary legislation.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Morris and Lady Jones, asked why we got rid of the gifted and talented scheme. It was actually the previous Government who took the decision to end the gifted and talented scheme. Our strategy for education is about raising standards for all pupils, and that of course includes pupils with natural ability or aptitude. As my noble friend said, those children are our future leaders in business, our future doctors and teachers, our future engineers and scientists. I agree with my noble friends Lady Perry and Lady Sharp that it is also about those with the creative and manual skills. I entirely endorse their enthusiasm for the World Skills Competition in October, where we will see some of the most skilled young people from our country and around the world. We must not forget the abilities and aptitudes in those practical skills as well.

Schools already have the necessary freedom to work together to ensure that all the pupils in their care get an education that stretches and develops them. That is backed up by accountability through Ofsted inspections. More performance information on the progress that schools make with the highest achieving pupils will be part of that. With those assurances, I hope that my noble friend will consider withdrawing the amendment and supporting our approach.

[The Earl of Listowel]

Before the noble Lord responds, I think that I am right in thinking that a Select Committee of this House, when discussing science education, drew particular attention to the lack of lab technicians and the difficulty that that posed for young people to spend time in the lab to do experiments. I encourage the Minister to consider that issue and consider what progress has been made since that report was published two years ago.

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Amendment 107 not moved.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, this may be a convenient moment for the Committee to adjourn until Wednesday at 11.45 am.

Committee adjourned at 7.52 pm.