Education Bill

Caroline Dinenage Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Dinenage (Gosport) (Con)]

I support the words of the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr Sheerman), who made some excellent and even-handed points. No one will be surprised that I support the Bill, not least because it signals a shift of power away from bureaucrats and quangos and back towards those who run our schools.

For too long teachers and head teachers have been dictated to by Government and overloaded with complex bureaucracy and endless initiatives. How can it be that head teachers spend 15 hours a week on unnecessary paperwork—15 hours that do not raise a single teaching standard, improve a single result or support a single pupil?

I want to speak on one particular topic today—Ofsted. We must not undervalue Ofsted, for it does an important job in identifying the quality of schools and informing parents about the choices. However, we should be under no illusions that Ofsted is perfect. There are currently 27 separate headings under which schools are marked during inspections—27 headings, but, as one school told me, the inspectors did not speak to a single child during their visit.

Under the Bill, Ofsted inspections will focus on four key areas—the achievement of pupils, the quality of teaching, leadership and management, and the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school. In today’s society it is far too easy to judge a pupil by an exam result or a school by a rigid and complex Ofsted report. The results tell only a part, never the whole story.

Over the past few months, I have visited on average two schools a week. I have 39 schools in my constituency, so I still have a way to go. I am extremely fortunate that the diversity of my constituency gives me a good insight into the challenges that schools face. Not only do I have some schools in nice middle class areas, but I have others that are situated in areas with significant welfare dependency and high levels of multiple deprivation. In some of my schools well over half the children are on free school meals, more than 75% live with just one of their birth parents, and more than 10% are under child protection measures because of neglect or abuse.

Many children experience challenging home lives, sometimes with parents who have drug or alcohol problems or mental health issues. These kids, from an early age, have to get themselves up in the morning, feed themselves, dress themselves and get themselves to school, perhaps with a younger sibling, while their mum might still be in bed. For these children, school is their stability, their comfort zone, a safe haven where they know what to expect and what is expected of them, where they will be secure, nurtured, listened to and cared for, where their needs are put first.

The schools that take children from extremely vulnerable backgrounds often have to do much more than educate them. Often they have to heal them, deal with their issues and address their needs, and give them so much more than numeracy and literacy. Those that are doing this successfully are, to me, the very best schools and the very best teachers of all. The problem with the current system is that after this incredible level of achievement, they might still get only a satisfactory Ofsted report because they have not attained the same high level of results as schools in more affluent areas.

That must be incredibly demoralising for the amazing teachers and governors who pour so much of themselves into supporting the most vulnerable children. What incentive is there for more able teachers and heads to take jobs in the most challenging of schools, which should surely be the most rewarding of roles, when they know that all their effort could be seen as merely satisfactory?

Reforms to Ofsted inspections will help to prevent that. Of course grades and results are important, but there is hope that for the first time it will be more than the end result that is considered. It will be possible to achieve good Ofsted reports in certain circumstances by demonstrating the true progress that has been made, measuring achievement from where the school started, not just where it ends up. Ofsted must be more sophisticated in recognising the social justice agenda, not just performance levels.

In many schools, the move away from mainstream academic subjects such as modern languages could be laid partly at the door of Ofsted. The constant focus on performance levels and grades achieved, irrespective of the subject matter, means that curriculums have been altered to please Ofsted. In my constituency there are senior schools in which no one is studying a modern language, yet classes are crammed with pupils studying for a GCSE in dance. We will become a nation of people who can glide sure-footedly through the streets of the cities of the world, but unable to communicate with a soul who lives there.

The Bill removes the requirement for Ofsted to inspect every school, enabling more resources to be concentrated on the underperforming schools. This will lead to more targeted inspections, so schools in need of support will get the help that they require to progress and show that progress is being made. Above all, the Bill sends parents the message that allowing every child to flourish and be the very best that they can is at the heart of Government thinking. It sends heads the message that the Government prize educating more than ticking boxes and filling forms, and it sends teachers the message that the Government value teachers and understand that nothing is more important than attracting great people into teaching. That is why I will support the Bill.