Education Bill

Baroness Whitaker Excerpts

Tuesday 14th June 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Whitaker]

My Lords, I want to focus on two aspects of the Bill which are generally not addressed in education debates. They do not figure in current proposals for education reform very much, and I think that will cause problems.

The first is the educational significance of the design of school buildings. We have heard of the Secretary of State’s remark that:

“We won’t be getting any award-winning architects to design new schools”.

I prefer his earlier remark, in 2006, that,

“architecture has the most profound effect on how we live … The consequences of poor building design are borne by us all”.

Of almost no building is this last point more true than schools, so I hope he will return to his former view. There is plenty of evidence about the powerful effect of school building and design on attainment, behaviour, including bullying, security, ease of supervision, efficiency and economy of use, and even crime reduction in the neighbouring area. But these are the product of award-winning architecture. Standardisation of an oversimplified kind is not the answer, any more than it was in the discredited SCOLA system-building of schools in the 1970s. I think that Mr Gove is interested in history, so I recommend to him Schools of Thought, by Richard Weston, on this subject.

The lack of requirement for new schools to be well designed is particularly disturbing in conjunction with the department’s consultation document on lifting planning permission for change of use to school buildings. I am not saying that a new school could not be set up in a sandwich bar or a hairdresser’s or a funeral parlour—some of the document’s examples—but those engaged in the education of our children should have to ensure that the design of their school is conducive to education in all its aspects. They are likely to need advice. So I ask the Minister how it is to happen that new schools have this advice, and what is the department’s capacity, after the capital review, to provide it? I wonder if we should not also think of an Ofsted duty to report on the effect on education of the schools’ buildings.

The second aspect of the Bill is those neglected children from the Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. In education we look now at aggregates, percentages and averages of attainment. But in our society we still pride ourselves on valuing the individual. We should not ignore small numbers where the injustice to individuals is very great but does not show up in the wider picture.

The Minister is, I know, familiar with and concerned by the distressing facts so poignantly set out by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, about the educational fate of these children and the consequent devastating impact on their capacity to earn a living. But is he aware of the recent research by the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain on the huge extent of bullying which is almost certainly part of the cause? Will he add that to the fact that, in his department’s study last year, a large proportion of these children opted not to identify themselves as Gypsy, Roma or Travellers, obliged, you might think, to deny their heritage to escape stigma and victimisation? These completely unacceptable findings point exactly towards the 1967 Plowden recommendations of special attention and planned action, now falling into abeyance.

In the Bill we have some provisions which reverse such targeting as there was, and others which make matters worse. The abolition in Clause 30 of the duty on schools to co-operate with local authorities to improve children’s well-being—which means, of course, also with all the local agencies which deal with health, social problems and justice, so relevant to truancy—is one such; the abolition of an appeal against exclusion, the removal of the right to reinstatement and the replacement of independent review panels are others. Between a fifth and a quarter of Gypsy, Roma and Traveller children, usually boys, are excluded from school, an astonishing and far higher proportion than any other minority ethnic group. It has not been paid much attention hitherto because it was not identified. There is no disaggregation to reveal it, for instance, in the Academies Bill equality impact statement. One cause is likely to be response to bullying. There is little home teaching arranged either. So any blanket diminution of appeal rights without a thorough examination of the justice of it is very risky. The Bill’s equality impact statement rightly commented on the low attainment of these children. But it does not seem to make any connections—it does not mention any impact of exclusions. I echo the concern already expressed on all sides of the House and ask the Minister what account was taken of the duty to provide education for Gypsy, Traveller and Roma children when considering the exclusion provisions.

We do have, finally, one good targeted service to help these children through the transition so many fear to secondary school, and to support them once they are there: the local authority-run Traveller education service. It is credited with securing a small but steady improvement in attendance last year. It is also a pan-European exemplar, recommended by the newly adopted EU framework for national Roma integration. But its lack of statutory backing has made it an easy target for cuts and it is rapidly declining. I think that we should look at some form of obligation to identify and support children who have become disengaged. It would take some of the burden off schools if it remained with the local authority, just as it has done with looked-after children—local champions of social justice, as the Minister put it. I look forward to his response.