Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 18th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Rix]

That is an extremely awkward question. In fairness to you, I should say that it should not remove that obligation, but I think it probably would.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I would also like to speak to this group of amendments. I support the amendments moved by my noble friend. I shall be brief. I think that the details of the amendments and how they would affect the legislation have been made quite clear. I would like to carry on where my noble friend left off in considering what underpins this.

At first look, the system of the adjudicator and admissions forums might seem quite complicated. It clearly is a bureaucracy in the sense of the word and there are things going on there that seem to be relatively complex. However, I think that the Minister has to go back and look at why this arrangement was made. If those amendments improved the working of the adjudicator, I would not have a problem, but it is really quite clear that the powers of the adjudicator and the admissions forum are very much reduced by this.

Three things underpinned the introduction of the adjudicator. When the Minister replies, will he be able to tell us how his Government are going to deal with these three problems if he removes the power of the adjudicator? The way that the last Government dealt with these three problems was through the system of admissions forums and the adjudicator. Take them away if you do not like them but it would be disastrous if nothing was put in their place, for three reasons.

First, I go back to this great complexity of the system, when schools are their own admissions authorities, and indeed when the adjudicator system was brought in there were far fewer schools that were their own admissions authorities than is the case now. I was not in favour of any school being allowed to be its own admissions authority, save for faith schools. Indeed, I was not in favour of the move by my own Government to allow academies to be their own admissions authorities. As we now move towards having more schools in that category, it will get worse.

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[Lord Hill of Oareford]

My Lords, this is our second debate this afternoon on faith. Like the last one, it has been thoughtful and stimulating. I want to start with the comments of the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield who reminded us first about the tradition of the churches and other faiths providing education being a longstanding one in our country. He also wisely warned us against the dangers of generalisation.

There have been a couple of times this afternoon where we have teetered on the edge of generalisation, and the right reverend Prelate sensibly and calmly brought us back from that. He also used powerful evidence to show the contribution that faith schools make. It is the Government’s position that they provide high quality school places and, as we have heard from a number of noble Lords, that they increase choice for parents and that they secure better results overall, which is one of the reasons why they are popular with parents.

Therefore, my starting point in replying is to say that I will, perhaps not surprisingly, be arguing for the status quo. We think that faith schools should be able to teach according to the tenets of their faith and to have admissions policies that reflect that ethos. The right of parents to have their children educated in accordance with their religious beliefs is enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, as we have heard, and we are committed to maintaining that right. The exceptions in the Equality Act that have been discussed today exist to allow faith schools to continue to provide education in an environment conducive to their religious ethos and in accordance with parents’ wishes. We see no reason to remove them.

However, those exceptions do not mean that schools with a religious character can discriminate at will. All maintained schools and academies must comply with the schools admissions code, as we have already discussed. They may give priority to applicants of a particular faith only when oversubscribed and they must admit all applicants without reference to faith-based or any other criteria when they cannot fill all their places. Schools with a religious character, irrespective of their faith, are subject to the same checks and inspections as all other schools and, as the right reverend Prelate pointed out, many of these schools have a very good record of reaching out to their local communities and promoting diversity. I remember that Church of England schools score more highly on community cohesion than community schools, which is a fact worth reminding ourselves of.

So far as maintained schools converting to academies are concerned, we set out the principle at the time of the Academies Act that they should convert on an as is basis. Therefore, the process of conversion to become an academy is not in itself a way of increasing the number of faith places available. New academies, including free schools—this is a question I was asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Massey of Darwen—will be able to apply faith-based admissions criteria only to a maximum of 50 per cent of their pupils and, again, only if they are oversubscribed. We were clear about that at the passage of the Academies Act, and I am happy to restate that today.

Overall, we see no reason to change the operation of maintained faith schools and academies. As many noble Lords have said, things are evolving in their own way. They are popular with parents, they are beneficial for pupils and they are an important part of the education landscape. However, we recognise that we need to strike a balance. That is why, with the expansion of the academies, we have been careful to ensure that there is no overloading of the system with religious-based schooling, which is why we have put in the 50 per cent limit.

I think we have struck a fair balance and that faith schools have served us well. I would therefore ask the—

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I agree entirely with the position the Minister has outlined. I just want to invite him to explore one point on which I think the Committee would like some reassurance. It is the point raised, to some extent, by the noble Lord, Lord Baker. The position that the Minister has just defended is the position as it was up to 10 or 15 years ago, and a lot of schools with faiths other than those which we are used to seeing are now coming into the system.

I remember at a meeting or two ago of this Committee that the Minister gave an assurance that he would not let creationist schools go ahead, and that is a religion. Yet his opening comments, however, were about the degree to which a religion is right to teach their faith in school. As we move forward—and there are more schools with a religion other than those with which we are familiar—how worried is the Minister and what actions is he taking to make sure that the position he is at ease with now continues?

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[Lord Lexden]

My Lords, I vigorously support Amendment 107, on which my name appears. It would be even better if subsection (1)(c) in the amendment included the words “independent schools” after the word “academies”.

Speaking on an earlier amendment, I laid stress on the importance of partnerships between independent and maintained schools. Nowhere is co-operation more likely to be valuable on both sides than in the areas covered by the amendment. In subjects like science and maths, independent schools can really help to raise standards and prospects for high-ability pupils overall because of the successful results that they achieve. In modern languages, for example, almost 50 per cent of top grades go to pupils from independent schools. Let that expertise be shared widely in order to break down even more of the barriers between the two sectors. Independent schools see themselves as part of our national education system. Their inclusion in co-operative ventures of the kind envisaged by the amendment would be greeted by them with considerable enthusiasm. For those reasons, I support Amendment 107.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I have a great deal of sympathy with the intention behind these amendments, but I have a few issues about the solution to the problem. I want to ask a particular question that the Minister might address in her response. In the past we assumed that very bright children will succeed despite school and that we should not put in a place a system where they could succeed because of their schooling. I am very much in favour of the proposal that all schools should try to meet the needs of all their students. I have often thought that the most able 2 per cent to 3 per cent of young people in this country have special educational needs in the broadest sense, and that they need to be supported. So I am entirely on board with the idea. I welcome the debate, and although I will have to look at the amendments more closely, raising the issue is a good thing and this should be a feature of our education system. We should ask schools to address the particular needs of this group of children just as we ask them to look after the less able.

I welcome what the mover of the amendment said in terms of not wanting to go back to selection, and I can see that the amendment is not about that. However, I think that there must be a more imaginative approach than creating what is essentially a high ability stream within a school. I am no great researcher, but I know that all the evidence shows that separating children in schools is not the best way of raising standards. With reference to the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden, work has been done about children working with those in the independent sector. I remember an innovative scheme that was set up under the Excellence in Cities programme in Manchester. Sixth-formers from state schools took an undergraduate module with students from Manchester University, or it could have been the Open University, I cannot quite recall. That was not an isolated scheme.

All I would encourage is more general thinking about how to provide for really able children who need to be pushed. What, in the first part of this century, can we do that has not been done before to raise standards? I would be much more interested in using new technology to set up master classes with the best in the world, even if they are located on the other side of the world. We should free this debate up in order to be more creative than we have been in the past, and therefore my question for the Minister is this: why did they abolish the Young, Gifted and Talented Programme? It was the one scheme that made every school in this country identify a number of students who were thought to be gifted and talented. It brought about cultural changes in schools; some schools had said, “We haven’t got any bright kids”, while others had said, “We’ve got too much on our plate with our struggling kids”, so there was a group of children whose needs were not being met. Over the years that the programme was in operation, we began to change the culture of every school in the country. It was not perfect, but it got on to the agenda in every school that the needs of the most able, by ability or aptitude, also have to be met. It was sad that the Government chose to abolish and destroy the programme, which would have been a good hook on which to continue the debate. I would not mind an explanation of why it was done and what will take its place.

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, perhaps I can just warn against being too prescriptive. It is important that schools do this in a way that is most appropriate. I certainly join others in encouraging schools from different sectors to co-operate with each other, but I will give just one example of why I think this is so important. I have two grandsons, one of whom is brilliant in English and terrible at maths, while the other is terrible at English and brilliant in maths. They both came from the same gene pool. A child might be in a high-ability group for one subject but not for another, so we have to let schools take account of that.

Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

It is not the case that the teaching of creationism in science, for example, is possible in academies because I believe that there are safeguards in place to prevent it. Further, there are various ways through the funding agreement by which one can exercise control. The basic point about freedom over the curriculum is that, through the funding agreement, academies need to provide a broad and balanced curriculum that includes English, maths and science. That is the degree of specificity over the governance.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

The Minister’s answer to his noble friend’s question is substantially right in that if a school tried to teach creationism, something would happen to prevent that. I accept that. But I thought his comments on how that would happen were interesting. He said that something in the funding agreement would stop it. I cannot imagine that a funding agreement would be drawn up merely to prevent creationism being taught in a school, which leads me to believe that the agreement also gives the Secretary of State further influence and powers over the curriculum in academies. Can he explain what those powers are and how they might be used?

Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, the 10 minutes have expired. Before we continue, the Committee has had a request from Hansard to the effect that it would be very helpful if noble Lords who have telephones out on the desk could please put them away because they are interfering with the recording equipment. I am sure that Members of the Committee would not wish their deathless prose to be improperly recorded as a result of their telephones being on the table. I make no comment as to who is being addressed.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords I have no difficulty or disagreement with anything that anyone has said so far. I very much agree with what the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said, shortly before the Division, and I did not disagree with what the Minister said.

My problem is that it is almost as if the Government have launched a press release saying, “No change”, and therefore expect change. It has always puzzled me what drives teacher behaviour or teacher perception. As the Minister said, this is not new legislation. It has never been illegal to put a sticking plaster on a child, hold on to a child’s arm to the front or rear of the queue, or to hold a child’s arm while practising the violin. My only criticism is that to table an amendment—I appreciate that it is a probing one—saying that we should have rules allowing you to do those things almost implies that we have rules saying that we cannot do those things.

I have two points. First, does the Minister believe that this guidance will change anything? I am not sure that it will. It is not the first time that the teaching profession has been given guidance and reassurances that it can do these things and that they are not against the law. What deeper understanding does the Minister have of what is driving teacher behaviour and public perception? It is not as if teachers have not had assurances in the past that they would not be hauled over the coals if they behaved in that way. There is a danger in putting together in guidance touching which is natural and instinctive and touching which could be totally wrong and a threat to children. The trouble is that we have not been successful in marking the difference between the two. I am not confident that the guidance being offered today will do anything more than the guidance that previous Governments gave out. Indeed, I may have given out some myself; I cannot remember, but it certainly had no impact.

Secondly, there is a lesson to be learnt. People who are not in government are sometimes tempted to give the impression that certain things are illegal and guidance says that you cannot do them. We ought not to play that game because we then become accomplices at creating a false impression. The problem is that there is a false impression out there that teachers cannot do these things. However, they have always been able to do them, and it is right that they should.

Will the Minister say something about the guidance? It could even be the same press release, who knows? How can we have any faith? I am not being critical because I did not solve the problem either, but what else can be done to get the message across?

[Baroness Howarth of Breckland]

My Lords, perhaps I may help the noble Baroness, which would be unusual from my position to hers. The Minister sent me a most useful document, Customer Voice Research: Behaviour and Discipline Powers in Schools, for which I thank him very much. It is extremely helpful to me in my arguments, I fear, in several places. As regards powers of discipline, a teacher commented that she was completely,

“unaware … of the ‘main powers’ available to teachers”.

Teachers say, for example, that the powers sound “really antiquated”. They have said, “I don’t understand it”, and,

“I don’t feel confident that the Head would back me up”,

if I was to do this. It seems to me that this is about knowledge, culture and leadership, and not about legislation. We should not be legislating for executive powers; we should be legislating for strategic options, the things which I have just mentioned.

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[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

My Lords, Amendment 76 repeats the amendment that we debated regarding the General Teaching Council for England, and I will not repeat at any length the arguments that were made then. As with the GTC, in this amendment we are looking to trust teachers, which seems to be a theme of the Committee. We are simply saying that if teachers value the TDA and the training and development it has been offering them, we can put it in their hands to decide whether it should continue.

I shall also speak to my Amendment 76ZA. It is no secret that I oppose the abolition of the TDA. I made it clear in the substantial part of my Second Reading speech that I think that the TDA has been doing a good job. People come from around the world to look at how successful we are at recruiting and retaining teachers. Prior to its formation, we missed our targets in teacher recruitment and under-recruited teachers quite chronically. In those days the Whitehall machine used to try to manage teacher recruitment and professional development from the centre. We have excellent civil servants in the Department for Education, but I am an advocate, at times, of putting some things at arms’ length from them, particularly—if we want to learn from history—with the attempts that we had in the past to recruit from the centre, which did not work. They did it so badly that they had to set up the TTA, the successor to today’s TDA, which we are debating.

The TDA is a success. It is still tough-going with the shortage subjects, but the agency has been doing well. It has met its target, even when it was as high as 40,000 teachers a year coming into the profession. That target has been reduced and is currently around 32,000 teachers a year. How did it do it? It did it with a mix of things including bursaries. In an earlier day in Committee, in an exchange with the government Whip who was at the Dispatch Box, I said that I felt that the proposals for bursaries in the document currently being consulted on, setting the maximum for secondary recruits at £20,000 compared with a maximum for primary recruits of £4,000, are sending a difficult signal to our best and brightest graduates about which section of the teaching workforce we value the most. I accept that we need to deal with the shortage subjects. However, we should look at the mix that the TDA uses, because it does not use only bursaries, it also uses proper integrated marketing—and not just TV adverts, although they have been extremely effective and successful and are memorable for those who have time to watch commercial television, but also billboards and proper cross-media advertising, including social media. When deployed, the marketing has always worked because of the professionalism and expertise of the agency working at arm’s length from Whitehall.

I am pretty shocked that there is no mention of marketing in the consultation document, Training our Next Generation of Outstanding Teachers, as if the department does not value it. Perhaps that is true. Perhaps Ministers do not like marketing. It is true that when the Government first came in they issued, I think, some kind of central diktat from the Cabinet Office saying that all government advertising was bad and they would not do any of it, and it was suspended for some time. I gather—it may be just rumour—that soon after the Secretary of State was appointed he went on a tour of the wonderful Sanctuary Buildings in Great Smith Street which included a visit to the eighth floor, at the top of the building, which is where the communications department’s staff hang out. Having checked out the press team and the speech writers, he stumbled across an assembly of desks bristling with awards and said, “What goes on here?”. The reply was “Marketing”. He replied, “I don’t like marketing”, and walked off. That is just what I am told, and it may or may not be true.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

That does not sound like him.

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As the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, said, when this found its legislative form in the Apprenticeships, Skills, Children and Learning Act 2009, there was no political opposition to it so I felt that it had a fair wind and that this was a sensible thing to do. In respect of her amendment delaying its abolition—so that it can do some really important initial work that it has been doing on job profiling and so on—I would simply say that it was such a painful process to put it together and to get that agreement. As we develop more of these non-teaching roles within our schools, we will in the end need this body. Just to give in and allow it to be abolished, even if it is being delayed a bit, is the wrong call because we will have to find the legislative route to do it all over again, sooner or later, so why not keep the perfectly fine legislation that we secured in 2009?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I also speak in favour of the comments made by my noble friend Lady Jones. Perhaps I might do a bit of history even more ancient than that used by my noble friend Lord Knight. This broader teaching workforce in schools originated right back with the 1998 Act and the previous Government's first Green Paper on teacher reform. As we took that forward, I remember the good will that there was among non-teaching staff about managing that change in the teaching workforce, which is probably one of the most important changes of the past 15 years. It has transformed the culture in schools and not only helped individuals but made the job of teachers more professional, because for the first time in a long time they have a proper support infrastructure around them in the way that other professions do.

I remember trying to negotiate that way back in the 1990s. At that time, the thing the unions wanted was a negotiating body. We got to a point when we were in danger of an impasse. We did not have a negotiating body, so how could we take forward these reforms? It was asking that group of workers to do a lot of extra things and to embark on change without any change in pay or promises about conditions or about paying the rate for the job. They fairly readily agreed to do the negotiating first and make the changes first. My noble friend is right that it was not easy to get it through the Treasury. They made the changes and got high-level teaching assistants and bursars in place without having a negotiating body going alongside that.

I thought it was a great tribute to the workforce and to their representatives to change before they had the protection that went alongside that, so when my noble friend managed to secure that negotiating body, for me, that was like closing a circle. I breathed a sigh of relief because it was right that a proper negotiating body went alongside that change. There had almost always been an understanding that the two were necessary but, for once, the workforce changed before they got their protection. It is a great tribute to them, but I would not underestimate how important it was in bringing about cultural change in school. That is why I am now sorry that half of the deal has been broken. I readily accept that the present Government were not part of that deal, but I do not remember objections to that clause in the Bill when it went through. I do not think you can separate asking part of a workforce to change and wanting them to continue to change but taking away their support body.

Secondly, I meet a lot of people who have the incredibly important role of school bursar. That role originates from the 1998 Green Paper. They have done brilliant jobs and are real agents for good and for change. They support heads and governors and are in leadership positions. I often speak at the conference where they train. It is always a conference of two stories. There are bursars who work with heads and governing bodies who understand what their qualification means and what they are meant to do. They talk about their leadership role in school. They are often on the leadership board and feel they are partners in the school. More important than that, they feel as though their qualifications and skills are being used.

The other tale from those conferences is of bursars who work in schools where the head still does not understand and realise what their training and qualifications have given them. They tell stories of personal frustration and of their skills not being used for the good of the school. I understand how heads get to that position: they have a lot on their plate and the truth is that up to the present time they have not been able properly to understand what the job of the bursar should be and what their role in school might be. That is where we will end up. Without those guidelines, job descriptions and framework, some schools, especially those that lack confidence, could take two or three decades to get in place a system for valuing and using their skills. I cannot stress enough that they are the best thing, and I am pleased that this Government appreciate that and will take this forward. Having a broad skill set within schools that can support the crucial role of teacher will enable teachers to teach more effectively and children to learn more effectively and at a higher level.

I ask the Minister to reflect on how taking away this negotiating body will help that broader, more diversified workforce do its job better. I do not think it will. If we get rid of this body, it will wind back 10 to 15 years of progress in having a more effective workforce in schools.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, and the noble Lord, Lord Knight, have both spoken cogently and persuasively about the importance of school support staff. I hope there is no one in this room who does not recognise the immensely important job they do and the status they have within every school. However, this clause and these amendments are not about the status, standing and job descriptions of support staff—they are simply about their national negotiating body. Although I have listened carefully to what has been said, I have not heard anything which has convinced me that the national negotiating body over pay and conditions is anything to do with the standing and status within individual schools of the splendid support staff who work there.

I strongly argue that each school has—and has a right—to develop the individual job descriptions, relationships and the jobs assigned to their support staff. Every school has its own requirements and needs, and it deploys its staff and support staff in ways that meet those needs. I believe it gives greater status to the support staff when they have a position within the school, which is recognised within the school and has been negotiated within the school, and a job which is assigned to them. So although I endorse entirely everything that has been said about the importance of support staff, I have heard nothing that convinces me concerning the national negotiating body over pay and conditions. Though of course such bodies are dear to trade unionists—you have more clout as a trade union if you have a national negotiating body—this only damages the trade union body which supported it. It does not damage the standing and status of individual support staff in individual schools.

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[Lord Moynihan]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. If you assess the success of Beijing, regrettably, we were heavily dependent on three sports, which were all sitting-down sports. One of my passionate objectives in terms of success in London 2012 is to make sure that we see more medals come from a much wider base of the 26 summer Olympics sports. That same principle should apply to the Paralympics’ sports as well. I believe that that can be delivered.

It is interesting that when it comes to football in this country, there is a perfect symmetry between the number of professional footballers playing in this country who come from the independent sector, which is 7 per cent, and the 93 per cent who come from the state sector. There is a huge lesson to be learnt about the relationship between schools and local clubs, and parents and volunteers to achieve that. My call is that that should be the basis for all sports in this country and my wish is that we move through the curriculum inclusion of sport to achieve that objective.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I find myself in the position of agreeing with a little of what everyone so far has said, even when they have been speaking in opposition to each other. I join the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, in paying tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, who set up the national curriculum all those years ago. In the 1980s, I was a teacher in an inner-city secondary school when the national curriculum was first set up. I know how it transformed how we dealt with not just children throughout the school but particularly those on whom we had given up to some extent. We were made to address the issue of teaching difficult, underperforming children what seemed to them to be tough subjects.

When the national curriculum came in and teachers, not just in the school where I taught, but throughout the country, took on that task, they were incredibly successful. A generation of children have had a better standard of education since then. That is my starting point. Having taught before the national curriculum and having seen what happened when a national curriculum secured, by legal means, an entitlement for children from all backgrounds to have access to certain subjects, I am instinctively very apprehensive about taking that structure away. It was one of the most successful ways I have ever seen of putting high expectations into a framework. It is how the teacher relates to the student that really embeds high expectations, but the framework of the national curriculum instigated it and gave it a push. As I have on previous occasions, I will always pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Baker, for introducing it. I think it is probably the best thing that happened. That is my first concern.

Secondly, the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, must see history repeating itself with everybody now trying to get their subject into the English baccalaureate. I was in a meeting this afternoon where somebody said with confidence that their subject will be the sixth pillar of the English baccalaureate. I will not say where I was this afternoon or what that subject was, but that person is not the only one who thinks that they have secured the sixth pillar of the English baccalaureate. We have a genuine problem. On the one hand, we want to make sure that all our children have access to a wide range of subjects, but on the other hand, we know the consequences of an overcrowded curriculum. Ever since the noble Lord, Lord Baker, introduced the national curriculum, we have been playing a game of wanting both things. What happens? We allow other good things to be put into the national curriculum, it gets overcrowded, then another Government come in and want to slim it down. We cannot keep going on like this. We have to look at what is happening and what messages we are giving to schools.

I agree with my noble friend Lady Massey about the need for a broad and balanced curriculum. Nobody can deny it. I agree that children and young people should be entitled to all the subjects she listed, and I could not agree more with my noble friend Lord Knight about the importance of creativity. I have always said that I wish I had done my ministerial jobs the other way round. When I was Secretary of State and Minister for Education, I thought that I understood the place of creativity in the curriculum. It was not until I went to DCMS that I really understood that I did not understand. In the Government, with the greatest of respect, the present Ministers may understand this, because I think I understood it better than some of my colleagues. In a department such as the Department for Education it is very difficult to understand what creativity is unless you have spent a fair amount of time with people who are creative by nature. Successive Governments have failed to embed that creativity at the core of the curriculum. It is not about finding an hour a week for art; it is about understanding in your soul that there is something in people that is creative that can lead learning right across the whole of the curriculum.

The problem the Minister has is how to bring all those things together. I suspect that so far he does not disagree with a great deal of what I have said. The problem the Government have is that we want to guarantee entitlement to a broad and balanced curriculum for all our children, to protect all children against schools that do not deliver that and to have a message that raises expectations in the average school, because a lot of legislation is putting into the average school what naturally occurs in the best school, and at the same time we have the problem mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, of the overcrowded core curriculum. We have to get out of that difficulty. One of the problems that the Government have made, about which I have been most critical, is to some extent about message giving. If they were intent on trying to get a broad and balanced curriculum without overcrowding it, the English baccalaureate was the worst way that that could have been done.

What we have also learnt from 20 or 25 years of educational reform is that schools follow the assessment measures. They have always done it and always will. Somehow, what we needed from the Government was a message through the assessment framework saying, “All right; we trust you. We want a small core—that is what the Government think—but we value that broad and balanced education”. My problem now, with the Government moving away from a broad and balanced curriculum, is with what that is doing not so much in the curriculum but in the assessment framework.

Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, for raising the issue of teacher quality and continuing professional development. We have heard that evidence from practitioners—which can be supported, as if that were needed, by a study by McKinsey—has found that the most successful education systems are characterised by strong systems of professional development, high levels of lesson observation, as the noble Earl argued, and continuing performance management. Also understood is the importance of teachers learning from the best and applying appropriate changes to their own teaching practice. Our approach to CPD and leadership training for teachers is based on that evidence. We are keen to improve the capacity of schools to take the lead for the training and development of teachers, and to create more opportunities for peer-to-peer training.

A key part of our overall proposals is the creation of a new network of teaching schools. This will help give outstanding schools the role of leading the training and professional development of teachers and head teachers so that all schools have access to high-quality professional and leadership development. We have also set up an independent review of teacher standards led by outstanding head teachers and teachers, whom we have asked to recommend to us new standards of competence and conduct for teachers. We hope that these standards will underpin our proposed reformed performance management system to make it easier for teachers to identify their development needs. The terms of reference for the standards review specifically require the standards to include the management of poor behaviour.

The noble Earl also suggested that teachers should have to be qualified in child development and behaviour management. I completely agree that these issues are of the utmost importance. Those points were made by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, and by my noble friend Lord Elton. Training in relation to these issues is already included in all initial teacher training and trainees must demonstrate their knowledge and skills in these areas in order to attain qualified teacher status. However, I was struck by the points made by my noble friend and by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, and I will follow up those points with my honourable friend Mr Gibb, who is the Minister responsible for this area. I hope that the noble Earl will also be pleased to know that the Training and Development Agency for Schools has recently developed and put in place a package of support to improve training in behaviour management for all teachers.

The noble Earl also raised the important question of classroom observation. Again, I agree with him—as I think do all noble Lords—about the importance of that. We are keen to encourage more teachers to take part in school-based collaborative and peer-to-peer professional development and to get feedback on their own practice. That is one of the reasons why we are taking steps to remove the so-called three-hour limit that the current performance management regulations place on the amount of time that a teacher can be observed. I know that these are probing amendments but, as regards some of the specific suggestions, I agree with the points made by a number of noble Lords that a requirement to undertake a minimum amount of 50 hours of CPD is not the route down which we want to go, but I know that he was seeking to elucidate the broader points.

My noble friend Lord Lexden raised the important issue of partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. I am sure that we can all think of lots of examples where that is going on. I agree with him that it would be good to see even more of that. We are working with groups in the independent sector such as the Independent Schools Council and the independent state school partnership forum to explore how we can get more partnership working between schools in the independent and maintained sectors. As he said, schools from the independent sector can apply for teaching school designation. I think that three independent schools have already made such an application.

It is also the case that independent schools can apply to the education endowment fund that helps support new approaches to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils in maintained schools that are below the floor standard. I hope that will be another area that will please my noble friend, as we are trying to build closer relationships and break down some of these barriers that have divided the sectors. As regards his specific amendment, however, he may not be completely surprised to discover that a statutory and particularly prescriptive approach is not one to which I am attracted. However, I would certainly be very keen to do all that I can to bring the two sectors together.

The noble Baroness, Lady Howe, asked about the quality of offenders’ education. I am afraid that I am not able to reply to her specific points but I will follow that up with the Ministry of Justice to see whether we can get her an answer on those.

There is clearly broad agreement that raising the quality of teaching is important. I hope that I have reassured the noble Earl that there are plans in place to improve this aspect of the education system. We are keen to raise teacher quality by creating the conditions in which schools and teachers take responsibility for driving their own improvement, as has been discussed. In thanking the noble Earl very much for—

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

Perhaps I might ask one brief question about the second part of the amendment tabled by the noble Lord, Lord Lexden. If my reading is right, teachers in the independent sector would have access to training on the same terms as those in the state sector, which would mean that the state would pay for their professional development, or at least some elements of it. The two of us have had discussions about this over the past 15 years. I would be surprised if the Minister responded positively, but the fact that he has not responded at all has left a question mark in my mind about his views.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Some of this is to do with shortages of teachers. There are more shortages of secondary school teachers, which is why those priorities have been set. However, we would entirely agree with what the noble Lord has said about the real importance of primary school teaching and of introducing an ethos of learning, and of the fun of learning, at a very early stage. Primary school teachers are of the utmost importance in that. The Government are doing much to improve the quality of those who enter induction in the first place but, as my noble friend Lord Lexden has said, induction itself is of great importance. It helps NQTs to handle the fresh challenges they face in their first teaching post, to strengthen their skills and to improve their teaching.

On Amendment 69 it is the case, under current regulations, that NQTs may serve induction only once—a point that has been picked up by noble Lords. In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, it is a fact that the previous Government’s regulations prescribed only one induction period. We have reviewed that position and decided to continue it. Of course, if things change we can always review the position but that is what we are holding to at the moment. Recent discussions with those who work with induction arrangements have supported the current position, reflecting the important points that my noble friend Lord Lexden has made today. We do not plan to allow NQTs to serve more than one induction period. It is of course a key element of ensuring that only those NQTs who meet the required standards are permitted to continue to teach in maintained schools, and we would wish to maintain that.

In answer to the point by the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, about academies, they are classified as independent schools and as such they may choose to offer statutory induction, although they are not required to do so. We will continue that position through regulations. My noble friend Lord Lexden raised an important issue—

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

Can the Minister clarify that? If you do your initial teacher training and choose to teach in an academy, if there is no requirement to do an induction year, how do you get your complete teacher training certificate? Is it not needed? I thought every teacher had to have an ITT qualification and undergo a successful period of induction. What is the position for a teacher going into an academy? It is not quite clear.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

They are classified as independent schools, so they come under those criteria.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I understand that. It is the teacher I am concerned about. It is just a scenario. The teacher completes a period of initial teacher training for a year as a PGCE, then goes into an academy and does not have to serve an induction year. What happens? I am not sure how they complete their qualification.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

I apologise to the noble Baroness. I thought we had switched to another subject. A teacher who wishes to teach in a maintained school would have to have gone through a period of induction, but I had moved on to the teaching schools.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

If the teacher finishes their initial teacher training and then gets a job in an academy, surely the academy has an obligation to carry out their induction year. Otherwise, they cannot qualify at the end of it.

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

Academies can choose. It is a choice, as it is with independent schools.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

That is terrible.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

I do not want to delay the Committee, but this is really important. There is no requirement on academies. I can understand there being no requirement on academies if the number of academies is small, but if, as it would appear, we are starting to move towards a vision of every secondary school being an academy, how can we ever be sure that we have enough induction places for the workforce that we need to keep continuing to recruit?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

Perhaps I could ask a question as part of my response to these amendments. I was going to raise this in the previous debate. We talk about the figure of 15 who failed their initial teacher training, which appears to be very low. I am making an assumption that the selection procedure is not so perfect that it has this right. Before we bandy that figure around, perhaps the Minister might let us know how many students drop out, because sometimes there is a managed drop-out. I genuinely do not know the answer to that. That figure might also be very low. It might be useful to have a picture of how many start and finish as well as the statistic of the 15.

[The Earl of Listowel]

The noble Lord, Lord Storey, reminds me of a meeting that I had with the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, and some head teachers a year or so ago. One subject that came up was mentoring. I am not sure whether it was the mentoring of newly qualified teachers or teachers in initial training. The head teachers were making the point to us that it is very important that the quality of their mentors is right. I forget the gradations, but perhaps they are outstanding, good and satisfactory teachers. The head teachers regretted the fact that sometimes teachers in initial training might be given just a satisfactory mentor when they should have a good or outstanding mentor. They may have been saying that they should have outstanding mentors all the time. Perhaps the Minister will bear that in mind. One way to improve outcomes in this area might be to ensure, more consistently, that the mentors are of the highest standard for people in initial training or their first year.

Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Monday 4th July 2011 Grand Committee

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees]

My Lords, some of you might have heard buzzing noises, sounding like bumble-bees, coming out of the speakers. That is because some people have got mobile telephones in their pockets and they are too close to the microphones. Could we leave our telephones well away from the microphones or even switch them off for a little while?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I support the sentiments behind these amendments, and those in the opening remarks of the noble Baronesses, Lady Walmsley and Lady Hughes. Some of these amendments are quite technical, but there is something underpinning them in that the proposals before us are, first, unjust, and, secondly, not the best way of dealing with a significant problem. In particular, I support the group of amendments that give a right of reinstatement if an appeal should be successful.

I invite the Minister to revisit the Government’s assumptions that brought about this group of amendments. It strikes me as the sort of thing that is great in opposition but which you hope that people have realised is not very good by the time they get to government. Its starting point was something that we can all share: there are children whose behaviour is such that they ought not to be in schools. They ruin the educational chances of other children and make the lives of teachers a misery. Nobody ought to have to put up with that.

There is another starting point that I support: that the head needs control of their own school. They need to be able to set the rules and regulations. Within a framework their writ must run. That is the nature of leadership. Where this went wrong to some extent is that there is a feeling out there that the problem of reinstated children is bigger than it actually is. Somebody will quote the figures at some point, but it is not a big issue. It does not happen often. On most occasions, the tried and tested system which will now be repealed completely has worked well. Schools, parents, governing bodies, head teachers and pupils will on the whole say that it works well. In any structure in a social organisation like a school or society, there will be times when it does not work well, is a bit frayed at the edges and you might want to second-guess a judgment. We should always try to make that better, to improve the law and improve the process.

I do not know how the Government have concluded that this is the way forward from there. What I really want to test with the Minister is that there seem to be two either/or assumptions underpinning this bit of legislation. The first is that heads are always right and pupils are always wrong, which is a case of infallibility all over again. The second is that even if heads are wrong, we must not admit it. If one of those two assumptions does not underpin this set of amendments, I do not know what assumption does. Both are deeply flawed. I hope that I do not have to say more than “heads are not always right”. I have taught where heads have made the wrong decision about exclusion; sometimes there have been sets of circumstances. It has been absolutely right that the child has been reinstated, and the school has not collapsed. Nobody can say that the head is always right.

I agree about the power of the head, but it must be about having a set of rules that the school community and the parents have bought into, and about enacting those rules. I do not agree with this notion of leadership and headship which says, “I can make the rules up as I go along, and if I decide that you have broken them then I can act accordingly”. It is only by giving that sort of power of rule-making to the head that this legislation makes any sense.

Let us say that we do not agree that heads are always right. I sense that where the Government are coming from is that, in order to support heads, we must support their every decision. That is a miscalculation and a misjudgment, and I choose my words carefully. There are heads in this room who will tell me whether I am right or wrong in this but, to be honest, if a head teacher needed this sort of legal protection to keep order and discipline in their school, I would question the quality of the school leadership. A half good head teacher can manage a reinstatement and the house will not fall down. What seems to be feared here is that, if a reinstatement goes ahead, the head will lose control and authority within the school. Good heads do not do that; they manage it, because exclusion is not the only way in which to ensure discipline and good behaviour in schools.

If we make laws to protect weak heads so that they never have to admit that they are wrong, we will not be producing laws that are good for discipline in schools. We need laws that give heads the right to run their schools, and in our utterances and judgments we always need to support heads in what they do. They live in the real world; the children live in the real world; the parents and governors live in the real world, and nowhere else in the real world is someone proven innocent but not given the right to reinstatement.

[Lord Willis of Knaresborough]

I was for many years one of those utterly infallible heads until my governors thought otherwise. Will the noble Baroness comment on the other factor that she has not mentioned? There is a misconception that the organisation that reinstates these children against the wishes of the head and the governors is the local education authority. That is another fallacy that underpins so much of this proposed legislation—that somehow it is pernicious local authorities that want to keep the heads under control. Perhaps she would like to comment on that, given her experience as a Minister and a Secretary of State.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

The noble Lord is right. As a not so infallible Minister, I remember the legislation because there was a fear that local authorities would make life difficult for head teachers. If my memory serves me right—and I am absolutely sure that it does on this—there was a requirement in previous legislation to make sure that someone with educational experience was on the appeals panel. Previous legislation has done the mending that needed to be done in terms of the appeals panel. People who have served as Members of Parliament may also know that there has always been a feeling among parents and students that appeals panels lean over backwards to support the schools. If there is a feeling in society, it is not that the appeals panel leans over backwards to exclude the child; it is the other way about. As the noble Lord said, many people on the panels have educational experience and want to support heads. Therefore, the people on the appeals panel are not anti-heads, anti-discipline, anti-order, anti-fairness or anti-justice; they are people who know about education and they try to do a difficult job.

[Lord Knight of Weymouth]

When the noble Baroness talks about heads, I wonder what her thoughts are on the pupil premium that has been introduced by the Government. Interestingly, it motivates heads to admit pupils from poorer backgrounds; and we know that, because of the chaotic backgrounds that some children from poorer backgrounds might have, behaviour might then be an issue to some extent. Does she think that there might be a danger of selection by exclusion, whereby heads take in children to get more money and then, whether deliberately, up front or otherwise, exclude those who are more difficult and damage the education of others?

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My thoughts had not gone that far, but my noble friend puts forward a very interesting proposition. I think that perhaps why he thinks that—and why he is right—is because some heads have always sought to manage their admissions through some element of exclusion. There are times when that is right. Some heads, in their first year of taking over a school that has been in very challenging circumstances, have excluded to lay down rules and regulations and to make sure that they can set standards. I understand that, but what the noble Lord suggests would be a terrible thing—and I hope, having put that on record, the Minister will bear it in mind.

I will finish there, because I wanted only to make that brief point. Either assumption is wrong, whether it is about the infallibility of heads or whether it is that when they make a mistake we pretend they have not made a mistake. Worse than that, this is not only unjust and unfair but will do nothing to improve discipline, because the kids and the school community will know that a child was excluded, that the appeal found for them and that the child has not been reinstated. That will do nothing to encourage the school community to support the head. Kids are really good about fairness, and so are parents. The legislation as it has been put to us will not help in that regard.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

I have a great deal of sympathy with what the noble Baroness said. I am very pleased that she brought our attention to two factors—that the children who tend to be the subject of exclusion have made the lives of their fellow pupils in their class pretty difficult and seriously hampered their education, and that they have made several teachers’ lives very miserable. There is nothing worse than having a seriously disruptive child in a class when you are trying to teach the rest of the children.

Where I part company from the noble Baroness, on a purely factual basis, is when she says that the clauses in the Bill assume that the head is always right. Of course, they do not. New subsection (4)(c) says quite firmly that the review panel may consider,

“that the decision of the responsible body was flawed when considered in the light of the principles applicable on an application for judicial review”,

and that it may,

“quash the decision of the responsible body”.

In other words, the Bill clearly assumes that sometimes the head will be wrong.

The other point that the noble Baroness made was about the importance of the head being in authority and being able to control and show leadership in his or her own school. As many of us have said in previous debates and as much research has shown, the authority of the head is paramount in the success of the school. It is not only that the head must be right—and you would hope he or she would be right more times than he or she is wrong—but that the head must be seen to be in control and in authority. If the head is constantly overruled by an outside body, it is very difficult for that to be seen. I agree with that the noble Baroness said—that kids are very quick to recognise what is fair and what is not fair. But we have already established—thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, giving us the figures—that there are very few occasions when the decision of the head has proved to be wrong. Most of the time, the head gets it right, and the excluded child leaves the school a bit more peace and the other pupils more ability to learn than there was before.

My final point is that this does not involve the head alone. It involves the head with the governing body, which will have made the decision as well. There will already have been considerable investigation of the head’s decision. I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, will speak for the authority of the governors. I find it very hard to believe that many cases will go wrong, when the head has made a decision on behalf of a teacher who wishes to exclude a pupil and if that has been reviewed by a governing body. Of course, some will, and the review panel has the power to say so, to stand the decision on one side and to ask the head to go again. I disagree with the noble Baroness when she said that, when the review panel sends it back to the school, it will always repeat what it said before. I do not think that that is so. I think that after the very solemn and rather frightening business of being found to be wrong by an external review panel, the school will certainly think again.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, the noble Lord is right. The power to innovate gives schools the right to ask whether they can be covered by this piece of legislation. You do that in advance; you do not do it because you want to keep a child in that night. I support what the noble Lord is saying, which is that the Government are making the case that only a small number of schools will use this power. If it is so important to them, looking across the array of legal powers they want to take themselves, if they think the most important thing is that they can keep children in on the same day, the power is there to do it. The noble Lord is absolutely right. The point is that this legislation leaves so many loopholes and so many risks of children not being safely looked after. We do not need to take that risk. If a school thinks it is important to them, they can apply for the power to innovate in advance. My understanding is that they have the power for five years.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I am the Minister who is in receipt of applications for powers to innovate. I have not been overwhelmed over the last year and a half by applications for powers to innovate. It may be there but the point is that for it to be there it is a more complicated process than it ought to be. Every school would have to apply individually. They apply to officials and officials put up submissions and Ministers decide and opine and then the power to innovate, like Zeus, is given. It is time-limited.

As a way of dealing with the issue, if one accepts that this is a permissive power, as it clearly is, and if you say to schools that all those that might want to use this power have to go through the rather cumbersome and protracted process of applying for a power to innovate, no one will go through the process of applying. They will say that this has been made difficult for them, whereas something that is simple, which gives them the opportunity and which applies to all—to choose either to use or not to use—with safeguards in place, seems a more rational way than making every school try individually.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Earl of Listowel]

My Lords, briefly, I support what the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes of Stretford, has just said. It seems eminently reasonable to support such a mode of working—of sharing the burden of the most difficult children among a group of schools. From speaking to head teachers, I have not experienced that model. However, I have spoken to the head teacher who was responsible for something called the Greater Manchester Challenge in the Greater Manchester area. It gathered together teachers and head teachers in Manchester to support each other. I understand that there is something similar in Greater London. This, perhaps, was one of the strengths of the previous Government. One of the good things that they brought forward was a mode of encouraging heads to work together to produce better outcomes for children.

One sees that the new coalition Government are moving in the opposite direction. There is a lot that we will support in that. Perhaps we can all support greater autonomy and respect for individual professionals, but I would be very sad if, in the process of that move, we went from one extreme to another and we lost some of the good things that came out in the years of work that the previous Government put in. To my mind, it would be very sad to lose that co-operation and recognition that some problems are bigger than any one school can deal with.

The Minister may say that there are new modalities in developing these sorts of collaborative approaches. I recall what his noble friend Lady Ritchie said in the previous Committee session when she expressed concern, as the person responsible within the Local Government Association for the safeguarding of children, that the academies programme has given rise to concerns about fragmentation. There is a swing in the pendulum from one extreme to another. Some really good things came out from the previous swing in the direction of collaborative working, and I should be grateful to the Minister if he can reassure the Committee—as I am sure that he will—that he recognises the importance of schools working together to deal with these issues, and say what new mechanisms he is helping to bring into place to make it work for children in the future.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I shall speak very briefly in support of the amendment because it is perhaps one of the most important that we will discuss in Committee. I know that we can return to the issue at a later stage. I very much support what my noble friend Lady Hughes said—out of all the obligations that schools have been freed from, this is probably one of the most important to discuss. My reasons for saying that are twofold. I completely accept the need for schools to be independent and I acknowledge and recognise that the Government are working to push that agenda as far as they can. Can the Minister say whether the Government also accept the need for schools to be interdependent? Does he understand the concept that sometimes schools cannot do well for their own children because they are not interdependent with other schools in the system?

If the Government accept that, I have a second question. Of all the things that schools can do, the thing that can most harm a neighbouring school is the exclusions policy. That is what makes exclusions different than a lot of other things. I am sure that the Minister and the Government fully understand that the actions of one school can make it difficult for another to raise standards. That is the powerful case for leaving there the obligation and duty to be part of the partnership. It is, first, about the interdependency of schools as well as the independence and, secondly, it is about understanding that the actions of one school can be very detrimental to the ability of the other to raise standards. Will the Minister reflect on that in her response?

[Baroness Garden of Frognal]

My Lords, I understand and have much sympathy with the intention of the amendment to promote partnership working between schools to improve behaviour and to remove bureaucratic burdens, and with the views put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, the noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. I agree that working in partnership to improve behaviour and attendance can help schools to meet the needs of their pupils. Very many schools are already doing this very effectively. We heard from Sue Bainbridge from National Strategies, who worked on behaviour in schools for the previous Government. She said:

“One really good example of partnership working is in Tower Hamlets. No one told those schools to work together; they decided to work together. They share their data now. They not only openly share data with heads and senior leadership teams, but flag up the youngsters who are causing them concern. They ask each other for help with strategies to address a problem.”

The Education Select Committee when conducting research into their report Behaviour and Discipline in Schools, published this February, observed:

“During our visit to Leicester City Council, local partners were confident that there existed an established culture of less challenged schools supporting those with greater challenges in terms of pupil behaviour. Therefore, the removal of the requirement to form BAPs [behaviour and attendance partnerships] was expected to have little impact on local partnership working”.

The fact is that Section 248 is not yet commenced. Therefore, schools that are part of a behaviour and attendance partnership have been doing so on a voluntary basis. No arrangements were planned to monitor or enforce the requirement for schools to form partnerships, and no resources have been allocated to schools to help them with the administrative burden that that would have imposed.

One feature of behaviour and attendance partnerships is that schools pool resources to buy in specialist resources, including SEN provision. There is no reason why this should not continue, because it has taken place without any need for this section of the Act. These examples—the noble Earl came up with an example as well—demonstrate schools’ willingness to work together on behaviour without being required to do so.

Of course, we must hold schools accountable for the outcomes that they achieve for their pupils. Our reforms to the Ofsted inspection framework, which will focus it on the core functions of a school, will ensure that schools are held accountable for the behaviour of their students. How they achieve good behaviour is for each school to decide. If poor behaviour and attendance is identified as a key issue for a school, the management and senior leadership team should prioritise this and take appropriate action. In looking at the effectiveness of a school’s leadership and management, Ofsted will consider how they work with other schools and external partners to improve pupil outcomes.

We have already discussed in debates on previous clauses the Government’s overall approach to improving behaviour in schools. As noble Lords know, one element of this is our trial of a new exclusions process, where schools take responsibility for the education and attainment of pupils whom they exclude. The trial will give us a further opportunity to explore how schools can work effectively together and with others to reduce exclusions and how government can incentivise them to do so.

Perhaps I may respond to a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Morris. In another place, Kevin Brennan said in a debate on exclusions that he would raise the issues of how—oh, I am sorry. All schools and admissions authorities are required by School Admissions Code to participate in the locally agreed fair access protocol to ensure that children without a school place, especially the most vulnerable, are found a place at a suitable school as quickly as possible.

I hope that I have demonstrated that repealing the legislation will not affect existing partnerships or stop new partnerships from forming. Behaviour and attendance partnerships appear to have flourished without ever becoming mandatory. This part of the legislation has never been put into force. I look forward to seeing this continue in future. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.

Education Bill

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 30th June 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Hughes of Stretford]

I want to explore a little more whether a school ought to be able to search and erase material, as mentioned by my noble friend and the noble Lord. Should a mobile phone be a proscribed item for every child in the school? If that is what the Government are proposing, I question that approach and hope that the Minister can clarify the issue.

I agree with all noble Lords that bullying is obnoxious and is a form of terrorism towards children and those exposed to it. It is absolutely invidious and needs to be dealt with very strongly indeed. I believe that if a child is using a phone for such a purpose, they will be using it not only in school but more likely outside too. I question an approach that, instead of instilling responsible behaviour towards mobile phones, seems to allow schools to issue a blanket ban on bringing them into school. A more effective approach would be to enable a school to ban the use of a mobile phone by an individual pupil who has shown to be misusing it rather than applying a blanket ban on bringing phones into school. If that is the approach the Government are proposing, I support them. However, I believe that the other approach is dangerous and contrary to the way in which we deal with other kinds of issues. We are allowed to take mobile phones into the Chamber but, I guess, if we started taking pictures of Members opposite we would be banned—and quite rightly so.

I would be grateful if the Minister could, first, say whether the Government’s approach is to allow a school to issue a blanket proscription and, secondly, if that is so, to comment on the points that I have made.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. I was not going to speak, but this important point strays into another agenda that is relevant here because we could be doing something that is not great. When I have visited schools, I have seen that mobile phones present a real issue—a huge potential advantage and a current problem. Schools are struggling to know what to do.

Coincidentally, on Tuesday I was in a good secondary school in Cambridge that, to be honest, was not faced with huge behavioural problems. I accept that it was not your average challenged secondary school. Its approach to mobile phones gave a clue as to how important they will be on the information technology agenda. Given that the Government do not have much of an IT agenda, with the abolition of Becta we must look at what schools are doing on that. I hope that in the coming months we might get to the point technologically at which we can as a society support schools in using devices such as mobile phones as an essential part of learning in school and with links to home.

That is not for now and that agenda is not quite here at the moment. I would hate to do anything now that would give a message that would make it difficult for some unconfident schools to move along that road in future years.

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I shall try to reply briefly to some of those points. I agree with the point made by my noble friend Lord Storey and the noble Baroness, Lady Morris, that one must be careful not to legislate in a blanket fashion that stores up problems for later. I listen in particular to my noble friend Lord Storey because he knows what he is talking about. He has day-to-day direct involvement and we should listen carefully to his reminder of the problems faced by schools. However, I also accept that a lot of technology can be used for good or for ill. That is to do with what people make of it rather than with the nature of the technology.

In answer to the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, our purpose in a number of these approaches is to give individual schools discretion in what to do, taking their circumstances into account. On the regulations that list the items mentioned by the noble Baroness, we have not laid them before the House because I thought that it was important first to take these issues through the House and Committee and to have this debate. We are not seeking to have a blanket ban on mobile phones, but we want to reach the point at which schools can exercise discretion. More generally, the Government will need to take into account the points that have been raised.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, again, I shall be brief. I have absolutely no hesitation in supporting both amendments and congratulating my noble friend Lord Laming and the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, on the way they have presented the case. One is particularly thinking above everyone else of those with special needs, not least of the age of 19 or 21—whatever the ages are—up to which care is quite rightly to be continued and provision made. It takes me back to my 20-odd years as a chairman of a juvenile court in London. At that time, there was a darn sight more co-operation. All of us—the social workers, probation officers, midwives and magistrates—were trying to find the right solution for the problems that ended up in the courts, and many of them were to do with a lack of schooling. Children were not going to school but the reason for that was not followed up. All that ended with the Children and Young Persons Act 1969. It was a case of, “Magistrates, you make the decision and we the professionals will deal with it”. That would have been okay if it had really proved to be the answer but—this is why I come back to the point—we need co-operation. Returning to the phrase used by my noble friend Lord Laming, “If only we’d known that at the time”, so much more could have been done.

This issue also takes us straight back to the principles underlying this coalition Government. I refer to the form of localism in which everyone co-operates to do their best, particularly for the least able within our community. I therefore congratulate noble Lords and ask that this duty be reinstated.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I am not sure that I shall be able to add too much that is new to the debate, but this is an important issue and I am hoping that weight of numbers will affect the way that the Government respond to it. There will be a bit of repetition on my part but perhaps also one or two new points.

I genuinely think that this is one of the most important debates that we have had so far on the Bill. I have a feeling that, if this measure goes ahead, the tide will be turned back and it will be very difficult to reclaim the progress that has been made. The subject was excellently introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Laming, and no one is more experienced than him in understanding co-operation. In some ways, the education service has been on a long journey in getting to this point, having put into law a duty of co-operation. I wonder how far the Minister and his department have reflected on that journey. If he had done so, I do not think that he would have come to the conclusion that he has. First, there is a litany of children’s cases where, if only we had known the background, we could have made a difference.

Going back in time, it was clear that the education system did not need to co-operate with everything else. Children were born into and brought up in communities where there was natural communication. There were no social workers, health workers or even classroom assistants and so on; the people in the community looked after the needs of the children. Back then, children very often flourished because their lives were not separated into the needs of many professionals. However, we do not live like that any more. The education and school service is a specialised service in many ways, and long may that be the case because it performs at a far higher level. To be honest, I think that we have spent the past 30 years trying to remake connections that used to be there naturally, and that has been a real problem for schools. They are being asked to focus on education. I look back to the early days of the previous Government, when schools were under a lot of pressure not to act as social workers or counsellors and not to make excuses but to focus on education, and that was right as well.

Over the past 15 years, we have been on a long journey in which schools have focused on educational standards for everybody. I think that teachers have always known it but government came to realise that you cannot deliver on standards unless you look at the development of the rest of the child. When I started teaching in the 1970s, those of us in the education system were too much like social workers and standards came off the agenda. Then, at the end of the 1990s, we focused only on standards, and children fell through the cracks because their wider well-being was not catered for. This proposed new clause has again found the right connection.

I am not saying that it worked brilliantly in the past but it is a very clear statement in law that our society understands that, for children to achieve and flourish, adults have to talk to each other, because children’s lives are not compartmentalised. It is as simple as that. Sometimes we cannot structure services for children in a way that reflects the people whom they are. It might sound bureaucratic, but I genuinely think that this amendment is an honest chance and an honest wish to reconnect bureaucracies—in the best sense of the word—to meet the lives of children.

Would the Minister ever tolerate or approve of schools not co-operating with local authorities or other organisations? Can it ever be right that a school says, “I am exercising my right not to co-operate with someone else who affects the life of a child whom I teach”? I cannot see that it is. It is obvious that everyone will do things without being told to, but we are not there yet. A Minister in 50 years’ time might be able to say that such co-operation happened naturally and was so much embedded in the way schools worked that we no longer needed to have this in the Bill, but honestly we are not there yet.

The sad thing is that some schools that have the most difficult of times, because they have really challenging children with so many barriers to learning, given half the chance will not comply because they have other things to do. It will not be because they are lazy or do not care or think that is it is unimportant but because, in the words of the Government, it is a burden lifted from their backs. In a way, it is those people who have the most need to co-operate.

There are simple reasons why this is the right thing to do. It is good practice. Secondly, it is not yet embedded good practice. Thirdly, I sense in much that has been said over the past year that teachers need to focus on education and standards. Even if that is the reason, they need to talk to other people and help remove the barriers to children's learning. I very much hope that the Minister will take the opportunity to explain the thinking but then to take time to see whether this problem that he is creating can be avoided.

[Baroness Brinton]

I also support the comments made by the noble Lord, Lord Laming. I confess that in the mid to late 1990s, I was chair of education in an authority where we had such an incident before the Act came in and there was a duty to co-operate. I remember at the time the deep shock as a fairly new councillor and certainly as a new Cabinet member at understanding that we had completely failed. The system had failed. I welcomed the Act when it came in.

I also echo the points that the noble Lord and others made—the noble Baroness, Lady Howarth, in particular—about a number of cases that have been reviewed since. I would say to my noble friend Lord Phillips of Sudbury that I do not think you need to take a school to court. All you need to do is look at the serious case reviews where recommendations have been made to schools that have failed to ensure that follow-up happens.

I am sure that the many schools that want to co-operate will continue to do so. The problem is with the small number that do not believe it is in their interests. I am sorry to go back in time, but I remember some grant-maintained schools in the 1990s feeling that it was an absolute liberation to be free of the local authority and doing everything that they could not to co-operate with it. I fear that we might end up with that sort of encouragement again among academies and free schools were we to lose the duty to co-operate now. It is vital that we retain it.

I have one further point that is not about safeguarding in the sense that much of this debate has focused on. In many other areas local authorities, not just upper-tier authorities with responsibility for education and social services but district and borough councils, should have a duty to co-operate for services that children receive across the board. That has to include library resources, playgrounds and provision of school places at a strategic level. Where more schools can do their own thing and there is no longer a need for an admissions forum, a duty to co-operate at the highest strategic level to ensure that there is the right provision for children in an area is absolutely vital.

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.

Children: Early Intervention

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 17th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I very much welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and to join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, on initiating it. The noble Baroness has a long history of interest in this subject and it is good to hear that her passion has survived moving from opposition to government—and long may that be the case.

There is probably unanimity about the importance of this issue. I suspect that had we been discussing this 20 years ago, there would have been a debate about whether it was right for government to comment on or intervene in what happened in families. That battle has been won. If we are to move forward, it is important not only to stand on that as a basis but to realise that we have to sustain and protect that belief. I do not necessarily want to go through the evidence of how early intervention works; I believe in it passionately and have enjoyed listening to the evidence so far, and no doubt there will be other contributions on it. However, having won that battle, we need to be very careful about any government action that would take us back to where we were before.

I do not want to dwell on this for too long, but I also remember that, in 1997, parts of this country were a waste field as regards early intervention. Some local authorities had no provision for nursery education. However, the infrastructure has been built up over the past 15 years, and we now have more than 3,000 Sure Start centres covering 2.7 million people. The provision of a £2.2 billion budget just for Sure Start and early years intervention has led to a massive change. It has provided more than simply the fabric and the bricks; it has brought about a change in culture in this country, such that it would now be unimaginable for a politician from any party to say that they did not believe in early years intervention and support. That is how far we have moved and it is very important that we do not risk it. It is still early days and it may not be as rooted as I hope that it is.

I want to look forward on the two fronts by which I will judge the extent to which we are likely to build on the progress, or to throw it away. I shall consider, first, the amount of provision and, secondly, the quality of that provision in the coming years.

On both those issues, the Government’s record so far does not give me confidence that they will build on the past 15 years of investment and progress. There are three main threats to the amount of provision. First, there is the 13 per cent cut in cash terms to the intervention budget, which is real money out of the service and will have real consequences. Secondly, there is the un-ring-fencing of the budget, and, thirdly, the diminishing of our nation’s ambition for a universal service to a targeted service. I do not want to go into all of those in great depth, but this was a Government in which both parties went to the election promising to protect the early years and protect Sure Start. Now the Minister who is now responsible for that has said to people that if they want Sure Start to continue they must lobby their local council to let it happen. That is not government responsibility; the public have made clear their view about Sure Start and early intervention. They have done their lobbying and voted for parties at the general election that promised to keep Sure Start and the amount of investment in that sector—and that was all three of the major parties. I worry that what the Government have done in their early months is to give away every single lever they had to ensure that this work continues. That is what happens when you un-ring-fence a budget and say to local authorities, “Here is a smaller budget—you decide how it will work out”. I am left wondering where the Government’s levers are to deliver the pledges that they made before the election.

The next thing that I wanted to look at was the quality of provision, because there are some fairly ineffective things happening in this sector. It is bound to be the case. In education, we are quite good at carrying on doing ineffective things; we are not as good at actually changing our practice so that we build on the evidence of what works.

I shall talk about one error that the Government have made and then comment on one opportunity that they have. Frankly, it was a mistake to remove the requirement that at least one person with qualified teacher status or early years professional status should be in our children’s centres. I admire the Minister for his commitment to the quality of teaching and praise him for having made it clear in this House that the Government are committed to that at school level. I just cannot understand why he can care so passionately about the qualification of those who work with our children at five and above but less so about those who work with our children at five and below. We have the irony of a situation in which you can teach children only when you have a degree level of 2.2 or above but do not need a qualification to work with our under-fives.

The last point that I make is about evidence. I join the noble Baroness, Lady Walmsley, in saying that the work that Graham Allen has done in talking about an evidence base is crucial. However, I disagree with her in that I am not sure that we have the evidence. There is some lousy research around, and we do not write it down and equate it as we should.

I want to take from Graham Allen’s comments in my last few seconds. He talks about the need to evaluate programmes by randomised control trials and other things of really good quality. I declare my interest in that as a member of the Institute for Effective Education at the University of York. We must then classify those programmes by quality, impact and caste and only then allow the professionals to make wise decisions on behalf of the interventions they make.

Education: Pupils and Young People

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Thursday 28th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I welcome the debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Perry, on introducing it. She always does so in a thoughtful and sensible way and I enjoy listening to and debating with her, as I do this morning.

She has highlighted some of the issues that still need to be addressed. I do not differ from her and I am not going to go over them. However, I should like to place on record the improvement there has been in our school system over recent years. Certainly I remain proud of the achievements under the previous Government—we made a wise investment—but I am not blind and I know that there is work still to be done. It will be more difficult to do at a time of falling budgets but that is the situation we are in.

We do not have a great deal of time and I wish to concentrate my comments on one specific matter. One of the strands that outlines the coalition’s approach to school improvement—I agree that it is a key issue—is the devolvement of power to teachers, trusting professionals and teacher autonomy. The noble Baroness, Lady Perry, said that that is not enough; that there needs to be an accountability mechanism as well. I wish to challenge that because I do not buy into it. I am second to none in my admiration for teachers and the work they do and I, too, believe that we have the best generation of teachers we have ever had. I trust most of them but I do not trust all of them—and I probably do not trust any of them all the time. That is human nature and would be the same with any profession.

There was a time when we trusted teachers to get on with it—the days when I started teaching—but, to be honest, the quality of teaching was poorer and the outcomes and results for children were weaker than they are now. It is an easy thing to say—it sounds good and will certainly put you in the good books of teachers—but, for me, it is not the way to school improvement. Two things have to happen: I trust teachers if I know that they are working within a framework of challenge and high-quality support; I do not trust teachers if they are left to get on with it themselves. I want to consider both of those issues in the time remaining.

If teachers are taking decisions about which pedagogy to use, how to group children, what reading scheme to use, what the balance of vocational and academic work should be, I would like to think that there was an evidence base to which they could refer when making those decisions. I trust my doctor to prescribe the right medicine because I know that every single medicine will have been through a trial and proven to work in certain circumstances; I know that he will not reintroduce leeches for me because of the system which states that leeches do not work. I therefore trust him because he is making a decision within a proven framework. Where is that framework for teachers? Where is the bank of evidence for what works? Where is the research for teachers to access and the time for them to do it? Where is that strand of professionalism whereby a professional person bases their practice on sound evidence and evaluates what they do? We have a lot more to do to give teachers the tools to do the job in the form of top-level information about what works.

My second problem with merely devolving to and trusting teachers is that it is not the first time that a Government have tried to do it. The Tories tried when they were last in power and we tried with the academies. On both occasions, we ended up building a new middle. The Tories built the Funding Agency for Schools, having taken schools away from local authorities, and the Labour Government set up the biggest section of the Department for Education and Skills to manage academies, having taken them out of local authority influence. History and evidence show us that—whether we like it or not—there is government, there are teachers and there needs to be something in between. There has been a lot of dissatisfaction, which I share, with local authorities performing that middle role. I do not argue about that: when they are good, they are good; when they are bad, they are awful. It is less than satisfactory.

We have had three, very good middle layers which have been simply abolished or ceased to be funded. One was the School Youth Sports Trust, which looked after sports in schools; another was Creative Partnerships, which looked after that section of the curriculum; and another was the whole specialist schools movement. They were the best middle layers that I had ever seen. They concentrated on training and top-level professional development; they made teachers researchers and reflective practitioners; they enabled them to create professional networks. I cannot see why a party of government who want to trust teachers have removed in one fell swoop a middle layer that was proven to work, that was not a quango, that spent money wisely and that had a track record of raising standards. Quite honestly, I could weep, because it is really bad education—time will tell whether it is good politics—and it will make it far more difficult for the Government to deliver on freedom to schools and teachers.

Academies Bill [HL]

Baroness Morris of Yardley Excerpts

Tuesday 6th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Walmsley]

My Lords, I support the amendment, although I did not get round to adding my name to it, for which I apologise to my noble friend. The amendment is one of the best that we see on Report because it evolved from an amendment—I think Amendment 4—that my noble friend tabled in Committee. The Minister pointed out that, if my noble friend’s initial amendment were carried, no academy could be formed if there was to be any effect on any school in the local area, whether good or bad. My noble friend’s amendment has evolved to enable the Secretary of State to take into account whether any good local schools will be adversely affected by the creation of a new academy.

My noble friend’s amendment is particularly important given that government Amendment 30, which is about consultation, refers only to existing schools converting into academies and not to brand-new schools. When a brand-new school is introduced, the local community will have to rely on the common sense of the Secretary of State to make sure that that school does not take all the pupils from other perfectly good schools in the locality.

My noble friend’s amendment comes out of his experience in Suffolk, which I think he mentioned in Committee. I, too, have been approached by one of my honourable friends in another place, Mr Don Foster, the Member of Parliament for Bath. He has had similar problems with an academy that was created under the Labour Government and is having an effect on very good schools locally. Of course, we must not underestimate the effect of the view that the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. A new school, which seems to offer something novel, especially if it has a shiny new building, could well take pupils from other schools that really do not deserve to lose them. The amendment would give the Secretary of State the discretion that he requires, in the Bill, so that we can all be reassured that he will take these matters into consideration when looking at an application.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

My Lords, I support the amendment. The point has been well made by noble Lords on both sides of the House that there needs to be an element of planning. I suppose that it is for the Minister to make a decision about whether his Government spend money on surplus places or on building schools for the future. It is interesting that one day there is no money for the Building Schools for the Future programme and the very next day, from the same department, there is money to fund surplus places. Surplus places cost money and do not contribute to standards.

I want to raise a slightly different point, which I do not think has been mentioned so far. I should like an assurance that the Minister understands the impact of a new school on another school that might already be doing a good job of raising standards. I start from the premise that it is not only academies that will raise standards; many good schools that do not have academy status are already on the journey of turning round underperformance. They are in a fragile state but are improving—going from failing and underperforming to being successful does not happen overnight. During that important period, when they have good leadership and are changing their reputation within the community, and when parents are understandably nervous but are restoring their confidence in those improving schools, they need a bit of protection. I worry that if an academy opens with a blaze of glory, with new money from the Building Schools for the Future programme, as was indicated yesterday, that will undermine the progress that the school makes.

I am not in the business of defending failing schools—I have done my share of closing failing schools and replacing them with either maintained community schools or, indeed, academies. However, I am in the business of trying to support and nurture schools that have put in a lot of effort and are now improving. Quite honestly, if surplus places are built into a local system, it will not be the schools that are already strong and successful that are damaged but those that have already had a lot of state intervention and support and are on the journey to becoming good schools. I should like to hear the Minister’s comments on that aspect of the amendment. It is an excellent amendment and I look forward to supporting it.

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

My Lords, I, too, am sympathetic to the amendment. It is particularly important to emphasise the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, about the number of places in schools that are already free. Quite apart from the complications that exist with new free schools entering into academy status, I should like to hear from the Minister whether the powers that he already has will allow him exactly the same right to make a decision, and whether having that in the Bill will make any difference whatever, given that presumably he will retain the right to make a decision based on whatever evidence may be brought to him that such a school will have a bad effect on other schools.

--- Later in debate ---

In summary, I agree with the right reverend Prelate: do not hurry this. There is no need to rush to primary academies. The offer has been made by my noble friend Lord Hunt to come back with future legislation that we know is in the stocks and to make the case then, having made progress with secondary school academies. Therefore, I say yes to all-throughs but, for now, no to isolated independent primary academies.

[Baroness Morris of Yardley]

I support the amendments and wish to raise two questions. I agree with all the comments about the difficulty of primary schools becoming academies and I shall not repeat them. However, I am a bit concerned about two suggested ways forward.

One is the notion of schools grouping together, which the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, talked about. I am absolutely an enthusiastic advocate of federations and clusters. They are at the heart of school improvement. However, I worry about the Government seizing on that as a way of managing the capacity of primary schools to become academies, as that would be the wrong reason to create a cluster or a federation. There are a lot of reasons for schools getting together to form a federation, which should be about what is best for school standards and for local provision of education. If schools get together to form a federation or a cluster merely to apply for academy status, that would be the wrong reason and I fear that the federation would not do a good job.

Another concern is that the academy will have a legal contract. It will, if you like, be a legal entity in terms of the academy agreement. If in three, five or 10 years’ time the academy sees the possibility of a better partnership that is in the interests of the children in the community, it might be more difficult to form a new set of relationships with the school. Therefore, I have some worries—not about federations but about the wish to become an academy being the purpose that brings the schools together.

I am also concerned about the second lock which the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, mentioned. I am a bit of a doubter on this, because nothing that the Secretary of State has said so far leads me to believe for one second that he is likely to exercise that amount of discretion and say to a primary school, “You are not ready for it yet”. All that I have heard from the Government is that they are enthusiastically campaigning for as many schools as possible to become academies. If the Government become interested in that second lock, the Secretary of State would need to publish a list of criteria against which he will make the decision and to say under which conditions he would accept an application from primary schools to become an academy. Can the Minister say whether that is likely?