Learning outside the Classroom

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Timpson

Wednesday 26th April 2017 Westminster Hall

[Edward Timpson]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is so much opportunity out there for children if they are given the permission to experience it. Someone who lives in the countryside and is surrounded by fields of cows might learn where milk comes from, but there are also city farms—there is one just down the road in Vauxhall—as well as forest schools. When I was training for the marathon in Delamere forest near where I live, I passed a forest school for early years—two to five-year-olds—run by the Forestry Commission. There are lots of ways into the subject, but we need to give children the chance, rather than making them feel that they have to stick with the classroom for all of their learning experience.

As the hon. Member for Huddersfield said, seeing original paintings, sculptures and historical artefacts in art galleries and museums is a very different experience from seeing printed images. Attending a live concert can enhance pupils’ understanding and enjoyment of music. Seeing a live performance of a Shakespeare play or—dare I say?—a recital of a John Clare poem, which the hon. Gentleman is clearly taken with, can provide pupils with different insights from studying a play or a poem on paper. We have recently updated the subject content for GCSE drama and A-level theatre studies to try to reflect that, and to ensure that students study those subjects with an entitlement to experience live theatre. I am not sure whether the House of Commons would qualify in that regard, but it is an important step forward.

A key element the hon. Gentleman raised was how disadvantaged children can get that equal opportunity of experience outside the classroom. I think back to one of the first children my family fostered. He was four or five years old and we took him on a holiday to north Wales. As we came over the brow of a hill and he saw the Irish sea for the first time, he looked at it and said, “Is that a big puddle?” He had never seen the sea before and did not know what it was. That is the challenge. Yes, we have free museums and we make sure that teachers feel equipped and confident to use learning outside as an important life-skill approach to enhancing learning, but the challenge is to ensure that no child gets left behind when we provide that opportunity.

That is why we support a museums and schools programme to deliver high-quality opportunities for all school pupils to visit museums that are linked to the national curriculum and support classroom learning. Last year, 72,870 pupils from 1,215 schools took part in that programme, including at the Barnsley Museum, the Great Yarmouth museum, SS Great Britain and many others. The £6 million for the programme since 2012 will be supplemented by a further £1.2 million over the next financial year. We are expanding the National Citizen Service for 16 and 17-year-olds.

[Mr Sheerman]

I hope the Minister is going to mention the critical point that I was trying to put over about having someone in the school who is trained. He and I have put up for too long with a variety of jobs—even careers—that were never done well. It was Buggins’s turn simply because someone had a light timetable and could fill in and do it. We need trained people who know about the potential of out-of-school learning to lead it with passion.

[Edward Timpson]

I agree that it is crucial to embed that into the school, and that there should be strong leadership, not just from the headteacher but from governors, who are in a more powerful position than they have ever been to influence what makes a school outstanding.

The John Jamieson School and Technology College in Leeds, just up the road from Huddersfield, is for children aged three to 19 with a range of complex learning difficulties. Every child in that school is given access to a wide range of school activities, and provision is highly differentiated so that no child is excluded. Within that, there will be children who are on free school meals or who have more challenging backgrounds. It is those children whom we need to capture. They need to have that experience and widen their horizons so that I am not in the position I was in when I visited a school in the north side of Manchester a few years ago. When I asked one child whether he went into the town centre much, he said he had never been. He was 10 years old and the town centre is less than a mile down the road. That is still the reality and, although we are making progress, there is clearly still some work to do.

Question put and agreed to.

Children and Social Work Bill [Lords]

Debate between Barry Sheerman and Edward Timpson

3rd reading: House of Commons & Legislative Grand Committee: House of Commons & Report stage: House of Commons
Tuesday 7th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Edward Timpson]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that the whole purpose of bringing relationships education into primary schools is to start creating the all-important building blocks that will make children resilient enough to deal with the pressures and risks that the modern world throws at them. The new clauses are intended to allow a period after the Bill has gone through both Houses during which we can draw on the greatest possible expertise to establish how we should go about teaching these subjects in an age-appropriate way, so that by the time the children leave school they have all the knowledge and skills that they need to make good choices in their lives as they grow up.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the Minister give way?

[Edward Timpson]

I will, but I should make it clear to Members that I do not want to curtail the opportunities for others to have their say, and I want to deal with other aspects of the Bill as well.

[Mr Sheerman]

The Minister will remember what we discussed in those happy days when we served together on the Education Committee. It is all very well to have an obligation, and this is a real step forward, but the fact is that if we do not give the people in the schools real professional training, it will not work.

[Edward Timpson]

We served on that Committee such a while ago that it was then called the Children, Schools and Families Committee. In 2013, Ofsted acknowledged that the teaching of these subjects was still not as good as it should be. We shall be working with teachers and schools so that they understand how to develop their understanding of and ability to teach these subjects, so that there is consistency throughout the education system.