Education and Adoption Bill

Baroness Howarth of Breckland Excerpts

Thursday 5th November 2015 Grand Committee

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

Absolutely. That is why we have Ofsted, which picks these things up. It is my firm belief that schools need looking at very regularly. I do not mean that they need a full Ofsted inspection but, as I said at Second Reading, they need somebody to go in to make sure that these things are happening and to make sure that the school then takes action on the deficit that has been identified.

We have a well-defined definition that is workable; it is not complete, and I do not think that the Minister will claim that it is, but it will flag up the need for further action. Let us get it clear at this stage of the Bill—because some of the amendments later seem to cast doubt on it—that nobody is going to force a coasting school immediately into academy status; it is going to be given an opportunity to improve by other means. After the kind of things that we have seen in the press this week, as if all coasting schools were suddenly going to be made academies against their will and without any consultation, let us just kill that myth among ourselves.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland (CB)]

My Lords, I was not planning to intervene at this stage but I would like to ask the Minister to address a question in his summing up. Like the noble Baronesses, Lady Morgan and Lady Perry, I think that the definition—whatever it is—has to be very clear and simple. My concern about it being simply about academic content and not having just one phrase that adds to the roundness of the whole is that we all know that when schools are under pressure—we all know what a coasting school looks like and when it is defined as such it will find itself under pressure—they will work very hard at the things that will take their scores up, which will be the academic areas. That could be to the detriment of the other areas.

I went to a very good programme that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, arranged. I will say more about that later, but one of the impressive things that the regional commissioners were talking about was how to develop leadership, which in all organisations—and some of us have had to work to change things round—is what is important. Leadership is developed by developing roundness in children. I would just like the Minister to think about how there could be some sort of phrase—a relatively straightforward and simple one—which ensures that schools do not focus just on the academic areas, because they are under pressure, at the expense of developing the other skills that will bring those young people forward and make them the next leaders in schools and in society.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth (Lab)]

My Lords, as has become fashionable, I will start with an apology that I have to leave early and that I was not able to take part at Second Reading because of my other interests. That segues into reminding your Lordships of my interests, particularly in respect of my full-time work, which I am not at, at TES—Times Education Supplement or whatever phrase resonates best with your Lordships.

This is a very interesting, probing amendment to a key clause. I broadly support what the Government are trying to do with coasting schools and any sense of complacency in schools which feel that they are not blipping on the Minister’s radar. Clearly they should be, through the RSCs. I have to say, I baulk at that acronym. If you do a search on TES for “RSC” you get to resources provided by the Royal Society of Chemistry, which frustrates the Royal Shakespeare Company. To have another one entering the lexicon frustrates me slightly, but I am sure that the Minister will be informed by the regional schools commissioners.

There seem to be three issues here: the type of school, the definition of coasting, and the definition of intervention. I would be very interested to hear some clarification on the record from the Minister about the types of school. It seems fairly clear that these are local authority-maintained schools so one’s assumption is that this applies to grammar schools, comprehensive schools and so on. It is particularly important that it is clear that it applies to grammar schools as well as non-selective maintained schools.

Then there is the question of academies. Academies are addressed in the amendment. I recall when I was a Minister—a long time ago now—that we did not want to include academies in legislation because we had separate legal agreements with academies and it became very complicated to unpick those legal agreements because you had to replace them with primary legislation and that created complications with sponsors. I remember the lines that I was given to take extremely well. I suppose I hope that those lines have moved on because we now have a lot more academies. Once you get to the point where the majority of secondary schools, for example, might be academies, you start to worry about the democratic deficit of Parliament no longer being able to properly influence the evolving nature of the governance of academies. They are not part of the local authority family. There is a direct relationship in contract law between them and the Secretary of State. How does Parliament influence them if we continue to have that line to take from the department and the Minister?

Incidentally, I would be interested to have clarification about where university technology colleges and studio schools fit within this. I listened to the excellent Cass Business School lecture by the noble Lord, Lord Baker, where he talked extensively, as one might expect, about university technology colleges and how well they are doing. I am a studio schools ambassador. There is fantastic progress in the performance of children in those small, more vocationally focused schools, although on some of the data it does not look as though they are performing as well on raw attainment. Having clarity around these exceptions is also helpful.

That leads to a second issue to do with coasting. We have heard really good contributions from all sides of the Committee on that. I, too, do not think that we should have an overreliance on data. I welcome the notion that we have better progression data than we used to. When I was responsible for the national challenge, it was very much data-driven and was very hard-edged and raw. The notion that we can do something more sophisticated feels a lot fairer. I agree with my noble friend about the use of the regional schools commissioners’ judgments and other things that inform that.

In the context of a broad and balanced curriculum and the comments of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, it is worth saying that I am able to see some of the data around teacher recruitment. For example, I see evidence that it is quite easy to recruit PE teachers—this has to do with the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Addington—but it is a lot harder to recruit in some other subjects, such as those in the EBacc. When I see evidence around what head teachers are saying they are doing to compensate for being unable to recruit in certain subjects, I see that one of the things they might do is not continue with some subjects if they cannot easily recruit for them. That would create a worrying scenario in respect of a broad and balanced curriculum. I add that comment because it might inform the debate about teacher recruitment that we will have on later amendments.

Finally, on intervention, this amendment is to the first clause, about certain schools being defined as coasting and therefore eligible for intervention. We are all interpreting intervention as being academy status. This Government will be with us, whether we like it or not, at least until 2020. If it is the Government’s intention that they want every school to be an academy, perhaps they should just say that, legislate for it and get on with it, and create certainty in the system. We can then debate real issues about the democratic deficit around academies and the governance of them, if that is what is happening en masse and at scale, rather than it feeling as though they are trying to manoeuvre, lever, persuade and cajole, and do everything they possibly can to get every school to be an academy, without actually saying so. That would be a more honest and straightforward way for us to proceed, if that is the Government’s clear intent. If it is not, and they want local authority schools to thrive, let them say so, clearly and unambiguously, and create a genuinely level playing field, without it feeling, as it does in this case—namely, if the intervention really is to be made to become an academy—as though they are using every excuse to force that to happen.

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[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, I take a slightly different view. I shall be brief. I am quite sure that the Government cannot intend that when this process moves forward there is no communication between the school and the other stakeholders, in particular, the parents. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Watson, that I am no education expert, but I know a great deal about children and children’s advocacy. My great worry is that often we worry about the status and needs of parents over and above those of children. I come from a pretty tough working-class background, and if my school had not, if you like, overridden my parents on occasion, I would not be standing here. As we are into personal anecdotes, I am giving one.

I think that both things need to happen. There has to be quick action when a school does not meet the needs of children. You cannot spend a long time discussing matters with parents who may be comfortable about what is happening, although it will not benefit their children in the long term. However, I do not think that that prevents good communication, and I cannot believe that the noble Lord, Lord Nash, and his team intend that.

[Baroness Evans of Bowes Park (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord was right when he noticed that I would be responding to this amendment. I shall allow him and the Minister to continue their debate next week, when no doubt we will cover these issues in more detail, and I will focus on the amendment.

Amendment 4 proposes that a governing body must inform parents that a school has been notified that it is coasting. We firmly believe that, once a school has been notified that it is coasting, we should trust the governing body to engage parents as they see fit, exactly as the noble Baroness said. That is what we would expect of a school. In practice, we envisage that where a school meets the coasting definition, the governing body will voluntarily inform parents. Issuing a communication to parents is already the normal approach taken by schools following the publication of exam results or Ofsted inspections. In fact, schools are not required to notify parents of Ofsted judgments but they do, and we would expect schools to adopt a similar approach in this situation. We would certainly expect governing bodies to be as open as possible with parents.

In the modern day and age, with social media and the availability of lots of websites, we would also—

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[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I am delighted to hear what the noble Baroness has said. She couched it in terms of “considering” but I await the schools guidance with interest. She said that governing bodies regularly notify parents of a number of issues. That is so but, as my noble friend Lord Hunt said, some do not, and our proposal would make the notification mandatory. If it is going to be mandatory in terms of guidance, why not put it in the Bill? I do not see any reason not to tie it down in that way.

There is the further question of what happens after the parents have been told. I was rather surprised by some of the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth. I accept that the needs of children have to come first but most parents are very concerned about how their children are doing at school and they want education to be as beneficial to their children as possible. I do not see that the needs of the parents and the needs of the children necessarily diverge. If we could make the assumption that they were absolutely the same, that would be very positive. I accept that we cannot; none the less, we have to trust parents to some extent as well, and surely they have the right to make representations about something with which they are unhappy.

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

I absolutely agree, and I said in my speech that I expected parents to be given the information and thought that they would be. We have been assured that they will be. I simply made the point that we must always put the children’s needs before other needs and that we have seen, down the generations, children who have not received the education they might have received, not only because of the system but because their parents have been comfortable where they are. I am sure they are very good parents and that they want the best for their children—most parents do. They do not necessarily know what that best is, though, and that is what I think this Bill is seeking to press forward.

[Lord Watson of Invergowrie]

I take on board that point and, yes, there will be various levels of knowledge of education, or indeed of the benefit of education. I do not doubt that. But it does not seem right that because there may be a small group of people who have an agenda whereby they want to prolong the process, or be seen to be doing so, you shut everyone else out. Using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, in my view, is not the way to move forward. As I said when speaking to the previous amendment, you need to carry people with you. I put it to the Government that this is not the way to carry people with you. However, I have noted what the Minister said. I hope that on Report she will come back with the outcome of her considerations, and on that basis I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.