Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 1st May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley (Lab)]

My Lords, I shall restrict my comments to the clauses in the Bill on schools. By my reckoning, we are probably entering our third decade of discussing the structure of schools in England. Interesting and important though that may be, it has not been the easiest of discussions. There have been a lot of piecemeal changes. Two government Bills on this subject have been completely withdrawn because of differences of opinion within the Conservative Party. Throughout all that time, teachers have managed to keep the school system going and raise standards.

I hope most of all that this can be a turning point when we put behind us this debate on the structure of schools and begin to focus on what makes the real difference: what happens in the classrooms. We have got to learn from those decades of discussion and years of change, and without doubt, there are more good schools than there were before. Without doubt, the birth and growth of academies has contributed to that. Academies have brought something new to the system. The noble Baroness, Lady Morgan, referred to them as a disruptor. They brought outside expertise that it was not always easy to get into schools, they have brought an energy, and they have helped to raise standards. But there is no evidence that I can find that shows that they should be the universal model—that only within that model can excellence be achieved. There is often, among some people in the Chamber, a lack of generosity of spirit in acknowledging that that excellence, that innovation, that improvement, exists in maintained schools as well. Academies do not have the monopoly of excellence, nor of innovation, nor of turning round failing schools.

My conclusion is that both types of schools should be allowed to flourish as part of a strong school system. If you want a choice on governance—because that is what it is about—if you want to leave the partnership of the local authority and the partnership of schools, if you want to take on those extra responsibilities, choose to be an academy; but if you want to retain that relationship with a local authority and that local family of schools, choose to be a maintained school.

Frankly, policymakers should be able to learn to live with that, rather than offering a bribe or incentive to change. If we can live with that choice and focus on other things, more schools will improve. If we want every school to be a good school, we must not only ensure that, as policymakers, we give each school the best possible chance of succeeding; we have to make sure that they do not achieve this by behaving in a way that makes it more difficult for other schools to succeed. We need a policy framework for individual schools to succeed that determines how schools relate to the wider school system. It is not a market that should govern whether schools succeed or not; it should be the strength of that partnership and the acknowledgement of the school system.

I welcome the parts of the Bill that make that more likely to happen. I welcome co-ordinated admissions. I welcome the power of local authorities to direct academies to accept particular children, often in challenging circumstances. I welcome the removal of the ability of academies to set their own admission numbers, not because I want to take away the freedoms, but because those can be exercised in a way that makes it impossible for the school down the road to flourish and succeed, and that cannot be right.

I welcome the measure on the national curriculum, as well, not because I want to tie the hands of teachers and heads, but because I have never, ever understood why it is a privilege afforded to academies but not maintained schools. It is a national curriculum: the clue is in the title.

When I look back through all my years in both politics and education, I cannot remember a time when flexibility within the national curriculum was not allowed. If the Minister could reassure us that it is a national curriculum and there are exceptions, I think it would put a lot of minds at rest. The decisions, in terms of the national curriculum, should centre on the needs of the child and not the structural status of the school. If a child has the need to do something other than the national curriculum in the maintained sector, why on earth should they not have that same freedom as in an academy?

I hope that the Bill gives us a strong framework for strong schools within a strong school system.