Education for 11 to 16 Year-olds (Committee Report)

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Friday 26th July 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, first, I draw attention to my declaration of interests; in particular, as chair of Voice 21, because it is specifically mentioned in this report. I am very pleased to be able to contribute to this debate. I was not a member of the committee, but I followed casually what it was doing and looked forward to its recommendations. I congratulate the committee on a very good document, which will be very helpful moving forward—and I thank the noble Lord, Lord Johnson, for the way in which he introduced it today.

This debate is bound to be about criticising what goes on in schools; it is the nature of the report and the recommendations. I want to place on record that lots of good things go on in our schools at the moment and, although even in our present system there are attainment gaps to be closed, we must always make sure not to de-energise schools even further by making it sound as though nothing good goes on. They achieve against significant obstacles.

However, the report goes beyond that: it is not about merely looking at what happens at the moment. It asks the fundamental question: are we aiming for the right thing? When we achieve what we have set out to achieve, will it be right and fit for purpose? The evidence that the committee has brought to us makes us conclude that the answer to that is no. It is stark in its emphasis on what the curriculum is trying to do: it is a knowledge-rich curriculum with very narrow pedagogy and only an end-of-course written assessment. I went through a phase of thinking that that was something targeted at some children but it was not a vision for the whole school system—but when you look at the ambition that 90% of children should do those subjects and be assessed in that way, it really hits you that that is the vision for the whole system, and that cannot be right. You can think of so many people who have contributed so much to society, whose contribution will not have been prepared for adequately in those subjects, with that assessment.

If you think about what we aspire for in our economy, where the jobs come from and what sort of adults—the rounded individuals—we want our children to be, that approach does not prepare them for employment, fulfilment or civic life. You can see the consequences of that, as has already been mentioned, in the reduction in emphasis on the other subjects. Music is 35% down, drama is 40% down, expressive arts is 49% down, while design and technology is down by 70% and is now taken by just 12% of pupils. When that happens, you do not get the next generation of teachers coming through either; we have seen that in modern foreign languages. So it is not just about the gap at the moment—we are sowing the seeds for the gaps for the next generation as well.

All that means that the case for change is exceptionally strong. That is not the vision we want: it is not fit for purpose, and it does not meet the aspirations that we have for our nation or our children. So I very much welcome what the report says about the subjects that are ignored—particularly oracy, given my connection with Voice 21. That is described in the report as

“the ability to articulate ideas, develop understanding and engage with others through spoken language”.

Why would we not want all our children to be able to learn to do that? Why would that not be part of our aspiration? Why would not that be something that we treasure and do all that we can to make happen?

Noble Lords have already spoken about the need for more creative and artistic subjects and for technical and vocational education—and that is right. There is an important point to be made here. When you go round schools, it is not that you do not see any arts, music, drama, engineering or technical work. It is not that you do not hear children speaking very effectively or articulately—it is that the system does not recognise it, and makes it difficult for that to happen. Yes, we have good musicians, but we do not have enough. Yes, we have people who do drama, but there are not enough teachers and facilities around for them all to do it. For too long, the Government have been allowed to say, “Ah, yes, but there is time outside the English baccalaureate for schools to do all those things that are important as well”. The whole system does not recognise those things, and everybody here knows that that accountability system is very good at driving behaviour. If you look at the subjects and skills that have been squeezed out, it is evidence of the power of the accountability structure.

It is interesting that in a report on the curriculum for 14 to 16 year-olds, as much attention has had to be paid to the accountability structure as to the curriculum itself. The curriculum is what we teach and how we teach, while the accountability structure is something completely different. But the strength of the accountability structure is so great that the committee has had to examine that as well. I am a believer in the accountability system. I believe in testing and reporting the tests, and I believe in inspection and accountability, and I have done ever since I was a teacher and the noble Lord, Lord Baker, introduced it into schools at that time. But, to be honest, it has now become our master rather than our servant, and that is a real problem.

We talk about having an aligned system. Of course, the accountability system has to align with the curriculum; we have to test what we teach, and we have to hold people accountable for what we ask them to do. But really that is now so strong that that alignment is a straitjacket. When you ask people why they are not going beyond the English baccalaureate, or why they are not doing more technical subjects, the answer is always the same—because of the accountability system. When the accountability system rules everything else that goes on, there are questions to be asked, which is why I welcome the changes to the accountability system that the committee has recommended. I think that around half of its recommendations do that.

This is the second Friday when we have had an education debate, and on both days the words “revolution” and “evolution” have been used. We have all said the same thing: it must not be revolutionary, it must be evolutionary—and I would say that as well. But I worry that actually we are using that as an excuse not to make the changes that we do not want to make. That is a real risk. I do not want to use the term “revolutionary”, but my criticism of this report is that it is not bold enough; it is restricted too much by what we have now. Really, being evolutionary rather than revolutionary should not restrict our vision—it should indicate caution in our actions. I think that we are allowing the dichotomy between revolution and evolution to put a straitjacket around our aspirations rather than using it as a guide in the implementation. I would have liked the committee—and after a general election is perhaps a good time—to go beyond that. Even if we implement all these committee recommendations, I still do not think that it is the answer to the question of what we aspire to for our children.

I will mention some things that I would have liked to see in the report—and I would very much welcome it if the new Government said that they would take these things forward. First, on assessment, there is nothing brilliant about end-of-term written exams. They are not the gold standard—there are other ways of allowing children to show what they have achieved, with pride and with an objective to do even better. Ofsted is not the only way in which to hold schools to account. The Government could do no better than to implement the report Beyond Ofsted by the inquiry chaired by my noble friend Lord Knight, which suggests an exceptionally strong, robust and fair way in which to hold schools to account.

The third area where I would have liked to see the committee’s report being bolder was to have the starting point have a wider appreciation of what we want for our children and young adults in this stage of their lives. What do we want for their well-being? What do we want for their character? How do we want to help shape their contribution to civic life? What do we want their dreams to be about? How do we equip them to make good partnerships and be friends, colleagues, comrades and work associates with the people they live alongside? How do we help them to be strong individuals and part of strong families and communities and a strong nation? There is no way that the English baccalaureate delivers that—but there is a danger that, while we may implement the recommendations from this report as a first step, the real task of a curriculum and a school system for 11 to 16 year-olds has to be bigger and bolder. Now with a new Government is exactly the time to take on that task.