Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I welcome the chance to contribute to the debate, but, before doing so, I draw attention to my interests in terms of my employment at the University of York and at Northern Education.

This is a disparate Bill, a rather bitty Bill. It covers a lot of different parts of education. I welcome some parts—I will do so throughout Committee as well—particularly the extension of early years provision, which other noble Lords have mentioned. I am particularly interested in the innovation that is invited in pupil referral units; that is a good move. I also welcome the sharper focus that Ofsted will give to the inspection of schools; I readily admit that a fresh pair of eyes cutting down data collection is probably a good thing after a Government have been in power for a number of years.

There are some things that I do not like that I will want to oppose in Committee, in particular: not inspecting some schools, no matter what their status; the changes to the school admissions rules and regulations; the abolition of school support staff; and the abolition of the General Teaching Council without any attempt to reform or improve it.

Parts of the Bill, when considered with other government announcements, provide a framework for what the Government hope to achieve in education over the next few years, and I will concentrate my comments there. What bothers me is that there is an inconsistency in the words that we have heard from the Secretary of State and the Minister in this House and in the contents of the Bill. I believe the Minister when he says that he understands the value of teaching, and I believe him when he says that he wants to improve standards in the classroom, but the test has to be whether the legislation that he puts before the House is likely to bring that about.

What I get from the Bill is that three things are beginning to emerge as the core of how the Government intend to drive up education standards. One is structural change throughout the system; the second is curriculum change at the wish of the Secretary of State; and the third, and most interesting, is the increasing importance of international comparisons rather than national comparisons as a means of assessment.

Structural change is always the first call for politicians, and that runs like a thread through the Bill. There is a relentless pressure for schools to be academies. It is not that I mind schools being academies, but I do mind the time the process takes. When I go to conferences now, I find that teachers talk not about teaching and learning but about whether they should apply for academy status. If you add to that the change in the size and composition of governing bodies, the reclassification of national organisations such as the NCSL and the shifting powers from the arm’s-length bodies to the Secretary of State, it is all about structural change—all the pieces are moving. This takes the time, energy, resources and effort not only of the department and Ministers but of schools and school leaders. While they are doing that, they cannot be concentrating on improving standards of teaching and learning.

The two other drivers that I identify in the Bill are very much connected. They concern the curriculum and what we teach and a move to benchmark assessment internationally rather than within the country. We will want to say more about this Secretary of State being the first to assume control of the curriculum. I wonder whether the noble Lord who has spoken imagined back in 1989 that in future years legislation would be passed that would give control of the curriculum to one of his successors. I welcome the more formal approach to international assessments, but it is in this area of the Secretary of State’s and the Government’s announcements on the curriculum that I have the most concern. I share the concerns of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Oxford about the lack of understanding of a broad curriculum. Frankly, I do not trust the Secretary of State’s ability to read the OECD evidence. Given that he has picked that evidence as the most important evidence to look at, I am worried. We should introduce legislation that attributes increasing importance to that evidence only if we know how to read the evidence.

As we know, the Secretary of State favours a traditional academic curriculum with the English baccalaureate’s emphasis on knowledge. He put it very well when he spoke to the Royal Society of Arts. He said:

“What specifically concerns me is an approach that denies children access to knowledge because time, and effort, is spent on cultivating abstract thinking skills rather than deepening the knowledge base which is the best foundation for reasoning”.

However, Andreas Schleicher, who the Secretary of State has described as the most important person in English education, said:

“For most of the last century, the widespread belief among policymakers was that you had to get the basics right in education before you could turn to broader skills. It’s as though schools needed to be boring and dominated by rote learning before deeper, more invigorating learning could flourish. Those that hold on to this view should not be surprised if students lose interest or drop out of schools because they cannot relate what is going on in school to their real lives”.

Of those two I back the OECD and will want to explore in the Bill how we ensure that the Secretary of State, with his new powers over the curriculum, cannot ignore the evidence of the OECD, to which he is giving more influence in the English education system.

At the end of the day, I ask myself what there is in the Bill to support teachers. What is in the Bill that will ensure that our teachers in classrooms with their pupils have the chance to teach more effectively? Trusting teachers—I choose my words carefully—respecting their professionalism and believing in their ability to shape the country’s future does not for me mean leaving them to get on with things; I think those were the words that the Minister used today. They need access to high-quality research, access to and money for professional development, and time to update their skills. Like all other professional bodies, they need a professional body to speak for them. Leaving them to get on with it is not respecting their professionalism, and the evidence shows that it will not lead to higher standards; giving them the structures they need to improve the job they do in the classroom will. Sadly, the Bill does not contain that. I will want to explore those and other issues in Committee.