Education Bill

Baroness Massey of Darwen Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I make one or two comments following up what other noble Lords have said. First, on the Graham Allen report, what struck me was that it talked not just about emotional support, which of course is necessary, but about brain development. We must tackle that issue. Children's brain development happens very early, from the day they are born. If we do not get in there early with interventions, the child's brain will suffer as well as its emotional development. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, about the assessment, and with the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, about resources. I believe that the second part of the Graham Allen report will be launched shortly—so the Minister keeps telling me. I wonder whether the Minister has any news on the launch of the second part, which is to do with the resourcing of early years. I hope that he will be able this afternoon to give us some news about that resourcing.

I also want to make a point about stepping back. The noble Lord, Lord Northbourne, has often talked about the need for parenthood education—not just developing children when they are born but stepping back to the generation before and teaching them how to be good parents. That is something that we may pick up on when we talk later about personal, social and health education, or whatever we are calling it. Parenthood education has to be borne in mind when we talk about early intervention for children.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I think we are united on all sides about the importance of the early years. I congratulate the noble Lord on suggesting the designation of the foundation years; that is particularly welcome.

However, I must express considerable concern about subsection (2) of Amendment 1, which puts massive responsibility on local authorities. That is a responsibility for every child born in that the local authority area, including children of parents who are more than competent and motivated to provide all that is necessary for their child, with,

“healthy physical, social, emotional and cognitive readiness to enter school”.

The resources required for a local authority to be able to do that for every child are enormous. Surely those resources should be targeted on children where there is inability—for good or ill reasons—in the family to provide that readiness.

Perhaps it is a matter of wording, but I do not think that we should give responsibility to the local authority for every child born in its area. For every family, every time a baby is born, to have the local authority and its various agencies move to intervene in the raising of that child is neither feasible nor desirable. Let us concentrate our attention where it is needed and not impose those blanket requirements on a local authority.

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[Lord Elton]

My Lords, what my noble friend’s amendments seek to do is not only desirable but in line with the Government’s policy. The Minister’s problem is not whether or not to agree but how to set about obtaining that end, which may not be as proposed in the amendment. However, the issue is so important that if it is in doubt it should be protected, if not in statute then in supplementary legislation. I hope my noble friend will be able to give reassurance in that direction.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

I, too, have had grandchildren at a Montessori school and I have a great regard for the system. Why are we suddenly throwing in Steiner schools when they are not mentioned in the amendment? I understand that there are good reliable figures to show the effectiveness of the Montessori system; are there such figures for the Steiner system? I simply do not know.

[Baroness Benjamin]

My Lords, I support the amendment. I, too, have great admiration for the Montessori system because my daughter went to a Montessori school and it got the best out of her. I believe that young children need to be excited by learning, by discovering who they are, by play and by forming their own self-opinion and doing things that are beyond them. The Montessori system is one of the best ways of getting children to understand who they truly are, especially if they then go on to conventional education in schools. It broadens their outlook, it makes them excited about learning and the amendment should be supported by everyone in the Room.

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[Baroness Jolly]

My Lords, I shall speak to Amendment 20, which is narrow in scope but concerns an area that has been completely missed out. It is for those schools—I suspect that they will be predominantly secondary schools—which have security staff on the premises who will be employed, appropriately trained and well fitted to carry out such searches.

One of the most difficult relationships to keep nurtured is one between a teacher and a child. I taught for 15 years. You work really hard, and when they are good they are very good and when they are bad, something such as searching a child cannot help. The amendment suggests that where there is a security member of staff, no other member of staff should be asked to search a child. It would be the role of the security staff to do that. They are appropriately trained; they know what they are doing. That will also help to keep the relationship between the teacher and the child. It will give clarity to all concerned. The children know that if any circumstance crops up, it will not be a member of staff doing that; not only the child but the governors, the head teacher and the parents know; it is crystal clear that a member of staff whose role is security will do that. I ask the Committee to view the amendment favourably. The Minister is nodding, so that is very positive. I hope that he will view this as something that will plug a gap. He says, “No, resist”.

[Baroness Massey of Darwen]

My Lords, I have real concerns about this part of the Bill. If ever I saw a can of worms—I do not see them very often—this is it. It is contentious and sensitive. Obviously, ideally, we do not want young people to be searched at all, but I want to get over negative and punitive provisions and move on to more positive ones. I will give a couple of examples to illustrate that in a moment.

This part of the Bill is likely to result in a lack of dignity for both pupil and teacher or a security person—the person who is doing the searching. Some amendments about boundaries for examination, issuing rules about items for which a search may be made, training of staff and the search being carried out by a senior member of staff, may mitigate all that, but consider the chaos that may ensue.

Many years ago, I went to school as a pupil in Darwen, Lancashire, a sleepy little town in the foothills of the Pennines. It was in the news about two months ago because teachers had gone on strike due to a breakdown in discipline because of confiscated articles. As I said, the town is very sedate, and I could not believe what was going on. They had gone on strike because of discipline issues about confiscating mobile phones, I think. It was about who confiscated what—it was highly subjective—and why they were confiscated. One minute, something was confiscated; the next minute, it was restored. It was absolute chaos.

The other example that I recall from when I was teaching was of a male teacher grabbing a 15 year-old girl’s handbag. A nasty fight broke out, which I could hear from down the corridor. I heard her yelling, “Get your hands off a lady's handbag”. I had to intervene, being her head of year. I said, “What is in the handbag?” She said, “My hairbrush and some personal items”. I merely use that example to show the inappropriateness of a male teacher being seen to interfere with what a girl pupil sees as her private items.

What is in the Bill is more contentious and dangerous than the examples that I have given. It states that staff can go through phones, laptops and delete information,

“if the person thinks that there is a good reason to do so”.

Imagine what that means. It could set up conflicts between pupils and teachers, staff and senior management, staff and parents, pupils and parents, pupils and pupils. All kinds of things could go on. There is the same-sex issue. There are cultural issues, abuse issues and special educational needs issues.

I accept that pupils should not be bringing into school items that can harm others, which are illegal or which can cause chaos in the classroom—for example, mobile phones—but, and it is a big “but”, surely a school must have rules and contracts which do not permit certain items to be brought in or, if they are, insist that they should be placed in the pupil’s private locker. That provision exists in many schools.

I know many schools where searching is not an issue. A head teacher at a school in east London said to me recently, “We have no tolerance of mobile phones, not an issue about searching at all. Pupils understand this; parents understand this”. Much of the provision is heavy-handed and can give rise to real negative, personal, contentious issues arising. Surely an amendment can be thought of which gives schools the power to ban certain items and make that clear to pupils and parents.

Educating to encourage respect for people and property is a must. No doubt we shall come on to that when we discuss personal, social and health education. Discipline in schools is not just about punishment; that does not work. This part of the Bill is about punishment and creating difficulty for parents, teachers, pupils—the lot. I plead with the Minister to look carefully at it again. Otherwise, in searching pupils, schools will provide the catalyst for conflict for young people in any context.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Massey, always talks a great deal of sense, and I absolutely agree with her about the can of worms. The whole issue is a can of worms, not just what the amendments address.

It would be wonderful if we could assure ourselves that every school in the country had such excellent discipline that rules about what can and cannot be brought into the school would be instantly obeyed, that children who have been told that they had to put things in lockers would do so, and so on. Unfortunately, in many schools, that is not the reality. There are crisis incidents where a teacher will suddenly become aware that not a child but a large, hulking teenage boy is carrying a knife and bringing it into the classroom at the end of a fight or row outside and there is every chance that he may intend to use it. At that point, a teacher has to take action. Whatever legislation and whatever framework the House or Parliament can produce has to allow for such a crisis for teachers.