Education Bill

Baroness Perry of Southwark Excerpts

Wednesday 6th July 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

71: Clause 9, page 16, line 41, after “regulations” insert “must provide for an appropriate body to receive a report from a person who is independent of the school and local authority, has successful teaching experience and who has observed the teacher during the induction period on more than one occasion and”

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, this amendment continues with the theme of induction and deals with the rather important issue of who assesses whether the teacher has or has not successfully completed the induction year. The Bill is rather misty on who will do this assessment. New Section 135A(2)(h) simply requires the head teacher ,

“to make a recommendation to the appropriate body”.

My amendment would allow a person who is independent of the school and the local authority to make the judgment. They will be well qualified to make it because they have successful teaching experience and will not pop in just once to make the assessment but will observe the teacher during the induction period on more than one occasion. We all know that you can have one bad lesson and then one sparkling one that goes terribly well, so it is important to see the teacher on more than one occasion.

This is very important, not only because, as we all agreed in the previous debate, induction is a vital part of the training of the teacher, but because it is sometimes very difficult to make an assessment. As I know from long observation and experience, the college or university where the students do their initial training tends to judge them much more on their academic achievement than on their practical performance. Also, it will be very reluctant for all sorts of reasons that I do not need to enumerate to fail many of its students. Now we move on to the school. If it is left to the school and the head, there is also a very real difficulty. The young teacher will have been a colleague for a year, and the school will be very reluctant to make a harsh judgment, even when it has grave reservations about her or his ability to perform well. Therefore, we are left with the crucial option of bringing in a well qualified person who will observe on several occasions.

I did not speak in the previous debate but I hope that even those who have not done too well in their first year might nevertheless have their induction period extended, as is suggested by new Clause 135A(2)(g). Like my noble friend Lord Elton, I have seen many teachers flounder in one school and do very well in the next. Crucially, we have heard that only 15 or 16 fail every year. That is simply not enough. We are still letting through a tiny minority of people who are not born to be teachers and who are not very happy in the teaching profession. For their sake, as well as for the sake of the thousands of children whom they may influence in their career, it is important that they are given at the very beginning the chance to say, “Teaching is not for me, so I will go into another profession”—rather than, out of the kindness of our hearts, just swinging them through. It is pretty miserable to spend the rest of your career doing a job that you are not good at, that you do not particularly enjoy and in which you struggle every day. The red light should come on at a very early stage and I hope the amendment will go some way to making that possible. I beg to move.

[Lord Storey]

My Lords, I will speak briefly. In days gone by, the inspector called. They would sit and watch newly qualified or probationary teachers, as they were called in those days, and make a decision. We have moved on considerably.

My current experience—I have a newly qualified teacher—is that it is a very detailed process. It is not just about one classroom observation. The newly qualified teacher will have a mentor in school who will guide them through any issues or concerns that they have. Each term, they will be observed on average two or three times. At the end of each term, a detailed form will be completed, which will have to be signed by the mentor and head teacher, both of whom will also provide comments. The newly qualified teacher can give an input into how they feel the first term has gone. That would be in partnership with the local authority and the local authority would then receive that form, which would be completed each term, three times a year. The newly qualified teacher would have to be successful in each of those terms, so it is not just a question of the head teacher observing the newly qualified teacher; other people would be involved in that as well. It would not just be about literacy and numeracy, but it might be that the person responsible for science in the school would observe a class that the newly qualified teacher was taking.

Currently, it is a very rigorous and robust process. I have no objection to an outside inspector or independent person coming in, but I want to assure my noble friend that this current process is very worthwhile.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Hill of Oareford]

I do not believe that legislation is required for that, but we will come on to that issue in a later group, where we have some specific amendments on the role of the HEIs.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

My Lords, I thank the Minister very much for his characteristically generous response and for his understanding of the point that is being made. I am particularly grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Sutherland, for making the point that I was trying to make, which is that those who have been colleagues, coaches and mentors—and all the other good things that we must have during induction—are not the best people to make a final, and perhaps rather harsh, judgment at the end of the induction. I feel that having an independent judgment is important.

However, in view of the Minister’s generous response to have further discussions, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 71 withdrawn.

--- Later in debate ---

In case any Member of the Committee thinks that the number of convictions, including cautions, is insignificant in relation to the number of allegations, the NASUWT figures show that in 2009, 15 per cent of all allegations resulted in cautions or convictions. That is not an insignificant number.

[Baroness Perry of Southwark]

At Second Reading, I quoted figures for the past 10 years from the department which showed that more than 1,700 allegations against teachers were made. If 85 per cent of them were not upheld, the figures do not support the argument that the noble Lord is making.

[Lord Phillips of Sudbury]

With great respect to the noble Baroness, I cannot agree. Perhaps that is because I am a hoary old lawyer and she, happily, is not. A 15 per cent conviction rate in respect of all the allegations made is a very high outcome. I will happily discuss this with the noble Baroness outside the Room. The ATL figures seem to me to be hopeless as a basis for bringing in this important reform.

The JCHR seems to be lacking in awareness of the balance of injustice and harm between pupils, particularly young ones, and their teachers when it comes to criminal allegations. We are in danger—and in the other place they are even more in danger—of expecting too much of the law. It is not the finely tuned truth machine that ideally we would like it to be. It never can be, given the machinations of mankind, despite the best efforts of our excellent judiciary. We do not talk about rough justice for nothing. That is why in criminal law we have a test of proof beyond reasonable doubt, rather than the lesser, civil test which is based on a balance of probabilities. The bias towards the accused is necessary to protect the innocent from conviction, which we as a society believe is much more important than convicting every guilty person.

We are not talking here about conviction or acquittal but about the freedom of the press to report, within the bounds of defamation, where criminal allegations are made, pre-charge, against teachers. We have to balance their vulnerability to unfair reporting against the undue sheltering of teachers, the interests of actual and potential victims and the interests of the public.

I turn finally and briefly to paragraph 112 of the June report of the JCHR, which states that,

“defamation proceedings offer no protection”,

to a teacher,

“where a report states that an allegation has been made”,

provided that it,

“does not assert that the allegation is true”.

The noble Lord, Lord Hill, referred to this in his earlier reply.

As one who has done a considerable amount of defamation work and overcome that defence put up by newspapers, I can only think that the committee is wrong when it says that libel proceedings offer no protection. The Reynolds case in 2001 and the Jameel case six years later prevent newspapers sheltering behind the defence of qualified privilege—or reportage, as it is called, in relation to a matter of public interest unless they comply with sensible tests. In the Jameel case, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, said that newspapers would not have a defence unless the report was responsible, fair, on a matter of public interest and in compliance with certain other tests, which would include the obligation to evaluate fairly and sensibly the basis of an allegation. They cannot simply recycle a verbal report of an allegation or something given to them by letter without checking. They have also to check with the person aggrieved, the teacher. They have to give the gist of both sides of the story and, importantly, they have to look at the whole tenor and pitch of the article. I hope that that is enough to show that teachers who are the subject of sensational, biased, unfair reports pre-charge have protection. One or more of the unions might make it their business to pick up a couple of test cases, which they could take and use to make their point. Believe me, that would reverberate around Fleet Street very quickly, as my noble friend Lord Black will confirm.

Teachers might also take up the invitation of the Press Complaints Commission—again the noble Lord, Lord Hill, referred to this—to report grievances in relation to pre-publication publicity. He rightly said that there had been none. But, as the JCHR report says, the notion that no complaints are made because it is a useless thing to do is simply not right. First, it costs nothing to make a report to the Press Complaints Commission. Secondly, it has very real powers over its newspaper members. It can and does make them publish retractions and apologies. So I do not agree with what it and my noble friend have asserted.

To summarise, I sincerely believe that the case for this most important of limitations on press freedom, albeit put forward with sincere concern for a most highly valued section of our community, is unsafe. Surely, the onus is on those who would restrict press freedom, especially to a single group and in a way never ventured before, to prove beyond reasonable doubt that such a change is unarguably essential. But, as I have endeavoured to show, the Government’s lack of direct relevant evidence as to the present extent of pre-charge publicity affecting teachers is all but total. It is that publicity, and that alone, which Clause 13 addresses. Not only is the need for the clause wholly unproven but it could and will unfairly disadvantage pupils and, in the worst cases, prevent teacher abuse ever seeing the light of day if a charge for whatever reason, and there are many, is never brought or if a school fails to bring disciplinary procedures against a teacher, and there are many reasons why that might be the case. Nor will truth be a defence, as I have indicated. For those main reasons, I propose that Clause 13 should not stand part of this Bill.