Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 12th September 2011 Grand Committee

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, I support my noble friend’s amendment. We have seen a great change in the training of teachers in recent years. In the past, teachers typically were trained for three years to their bachelor educational degree, which was a good long grounding. We have seen that period reduced to one year, and more and more teachers are being trained on the job. I welcome the move to more classroom-based learning for teachers but we have to be sure that it is right. There is a risk to that strategy and I look for reassurance from the Minister that teachers will be getting an understanding of SEN in that training. Perhaps I may make a further comment—we should not forget that more and more classroom assistants are those who work one-to-one with children with SEN. They too need the high-quality training.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, perhaps I may make a brief comment and ask a question. I have some sympathy with the amendment. When I first saw it I thought that it was perhaps overprescriptive, but having listened to the noble Lord, Lord Low, I have sympathy with it. Throughout the proceedings on the Bill we have understandably heard a lot from the Government about not putting heavy regulatory burdens on schools. Given that that is the direction in which we are going, it is obvious that at some point in the system there should be a fair amount of regulation—otherwise the system collapses and no-one would know what is going on. My understanding from the teaching schools—of which I am a great supporter and I hope that they do very well—is that this is one of those areas where the Government have accepted that there will have to be a lot of monitoring and a fair amount of regulation. You can see that by looking at the criteria for a teaching school. For instance, a head has to have been in post for three years—a matter with which I have always quibbled in my mind. However, I am not going to quibble with it because I accept that this is one of those bits of the education system that the Government really will have to keep their eyes on.

I can therefore see the argument, given that one of the great weaknesses in our education system is the quality of training for SEN that teachers get, that there is never enough time in initial teacher training to do that adequately. It is not properly covered in the induction year—it did not happen when I was in power and there has not been much improvement since. There is a genuine problem and I am persuaded by what the noble Lord says—these are the areas where these institutions need to be properly regulated. Losing this opportunity, which we should seize to raise the standards of teaching those with special needs, would be again to commit the mistake that we have all committed through the years, which is to pass legislation and then in future years see how we can tag SEN on to it. That has been a huge fault of government for decades. We put something in place and a few months later think, “Ah, how can we make this relate to SEN?”.

My question is this—how many schools designated teaching schools have not been awarded an “outstanding” category by Ofsted? What is that overlap, and how many schools not in that category have applied to become teaching schools? Perhaps the Minister can provide a little analysis of the comparison between schools which have been awarded the “outstanding” category as a result of inspections and those that are “outstanding” in SEN.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, regarding the legislation passed in the previous Session, which enabled and made necessary the identification of people suffering from dyslexia and that group of disabilities, it would be helpful if the Minister could tell us to what extent the number presenting themselves as suffering from these disabilities has increased. That would give us an idea of the workload.