Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting) Debate

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Department: Department for Education

Children's Wellbeing and Schools Bill (Second sitting)

Catherine Atkinson Excerpts
Tuesday 21st January 2025

(1 day, 13 hours ago)

Public Bill Committees
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Patrick Spencer Portrait Patrick Spencer (Central Suffolk and North Ipswich) (Con)
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Q That is an interesting point, Sir Martyn. You had the freedom to hire a teacher when you saw fit. We have just heard that the Government intend this Bill to be predominantly about setting and improving standards in our school system, but it does curtail certain freedoms for schools. Have you any thoughts on the freedoms that are being curtailed in this Bill? Also, in your experience at Ofsted, what are the components that are necessary and common when schools turn around and you see them improve?

Sir Martyn Oliver: Lee and I will answer this one together. The components we see are the ones that we set out in the Ofsted framework, on which I am about to consult. The quality of leadership and governance from those running the organisations is always No. 1. Then, very quickly, it is the quality of the curriculum, the ability of teachers to deliver that curriculum, and the outcomes that children receive. It is then everything else: behaviour, attendance, personal development, wellbeing. All these things form part of our inspection regime. We test and check them all.

Lee Owston: In my 13 years as one of His Majesty’s inspectors, I have always observed in schools that there is a mix of colleagues who are delivering the curriculum. The absolute beauty and purpose of inspection is to get underneath, on the ground, the difference you are making to the children in front of you, whatever qualification you might have, if any. It means asking questions of the leaders about why they have decided to do what they have done in the context in which they are working. Ultimately we report on whether whatever decision a leader has made ultimately has the intent of making a difference so that, whatever background a child comes from, it is allowing them to succeed.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson (Derby North) (Lab)
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Q We heard from the Children’s Commissioner that the number of children who are missing from education and at risk of child sexual exploitation has been getting worse. I am interested in your views as to why.

Sir Martyn Oliver: We see quite a number of issues. I spoke recently in my annual review, which I laid before Parliament in December, about home schooling and flexi-schooling. To be clear, many children are very well flexi-schooled and home-schooled, but I am very concerned about those who have been withdrawn from the school’s register for all the wrong reasons. Dame Rachel recently mentioned the very sad case of Sara Sharif.

If a school is recommending that a child be placed in front of the child protection team, it should clearly not be possible for a parent to then withdraw that child from that oversight of the professionals and place them in home education. Not only is having a register of children who are not in education massively important for keeping individuals safe, but it will be of significant benefit to Ofsted. In the Bill, there are sharing powers between the DFE, the local authority and Ofsted that will allow us to investigate for unregistered and illegal schools, so we will be better able to determine where they might be taking place. That will be hugely beneficial for keeping children safer.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson
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Q You were talking about “broad and balanced”. Given the 47% drop in arts subjects at GCSE, do you feel that more needs to be done to ensure that we have an even broader range of subjects that can be enjoyed?

Sir Martyn Oliver: Speaking as a qualified teacher of fine art, absolutely.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson
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I am very pleased to hear it.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
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Q Thank you for being with us today, Sir Martyn. When your HMIs find academies or academy trusts significantly deviating from the national curriculum, what are the usual reasons and in what ways do they deviate?

Sir Martyn Oliver: Actually, the education inspection framework that we currently use significantly reduced the deviation of academies because it set out the need to carry out a broad and balanced curriculum. That was interesting, because it was not what was set out in the articles of the individual academies and those freedoms, so Ofsted has been in tension with those articles for quite some time.

The Bill puts everyone on the same footing. I think that there is good in that, but speaking as HMCI, as a previous chief executive of one of the largest trusts, as a headteacher and as a teacher for 30 years, I would always want to give headteachers the flexibility to do what is right for their children, as long as it ultimately delivers the broad and balanced education that you would expect all children to receive.

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Patrick Spencer Portrait Patrick Spencer
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Q For what it is worth. Luke Sparkes, do you have anything to add on top of that?

Luke Sparkes: I do not have a huge amount to add beyond agreeing with what colleagues have said. My most significant concern, as I have said, is about conditions for teachers. On the point about capacity within local authorities—I can only speak on the local authorities that we work with, which we try to have positive relationships with—they probably would not have the capacity to do the kind of things you said around school improvements.

Trusts were set up purely for the purpose of running and improving schools, and nothing more or less than that, so we have the expertise and capacity to do that school improvement work. I agree with Sir Dan that, when trying to turn around a very challenging school, it is much better when it is within the accountability structure of a trust as they are able to move much quicker. I am interested to see how the regional improvement for standards and excellence teams develop. They seem similar to what national leaders of education were in the past, and they did not always necessarily have the teeth to do what was needed, so I am interested to see how they develop, but for me, the significant concern is about conditions.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson
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Q We heard from the National Association of Head Teachers that they wanted to see more collaboration, and some concern was expressed that not enough collaboration was taking place to date. I would be interested to hear your views as to how we can improve that, and whether you would acknowledge that, across a lot of different areas, it is not happening to date. I understood what you said in relation to narrowing to core, but given that we are in a position currently where we are seeing a 47% reduction in arts GCSEs, and in Derby the only place you can do engineering at high levels is the UTC in the college, there is some concern that that narrowing has cut off some opportunities to some of our young people. I would be really interested in your views, both on collaboration and on trying to ensure that we have a really broad option for all our children.

Luke Sparkes: In terms of curriculum, we have always tried at Dixons to give as much breadth as possible. Our curriculum is fairly traditional. It does focus on the EBacc, but it has done so since before the EBacc existed. We have always specialised in the arts and sports as well. We have two schools with an arts specialism. We have always valued those, so I would agree with you that breadth is really important. There is a place to have, at a macro level, some kind of framework that is evidence-informed around the subjects that should perhaps be taught, but we also need the ability to enact the curriculum in a responsive and flexible way at a local level. I can see the desire to get that consistency, but there needs to be a consistency without stifling innovation. I support the idea that there needs to be breadth, but I think we have demonstrated that.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson
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Q So you are doing something, but that is not necessarily happening across other trusts and academies?

Luke Sparkes: I cannot speak for the whole sector,but I can say what we believe.

Sir Dan Moynihan: I agree with you on breadth, and we too emphasise the EBacc. Around 40% of our kids are pupil premium and another 30% are just about managing, highly disadvantaged children, but we want them to learn history, geography and a modern language to 16 because that gives them cultural capital that they will need. That does not mean that they cannot be doing high-quality vocational qualifications alongside. The only way to engineer that is to broaden the range of qualifications that will count towards measures such as Progress 8. That will be the incentive that the system needs.

Collaboration is, of course, a good thing as long as it is focused on standards, and does not alternate or deviate from that. It is possible to spend a lot of time talking in talking shops, but what we need is collaboration between multi-academy trusts and schools that is about sharing best practice. That will raise standards.

Sir Jon Coles: On collaboration, it has always been an issue in the school system that practice gets trapped within the boundaries of institutions. Around 20 years ago, when I was setting up and running London Challenge, you could walk from one school to another in London and you would find outstanding practice in one school, and in the next school down the road they would have absolutely no idea what was going on. Occasionally you would find a forward-thinking, energetic and effective local authority—such as Tower Hamlets in what it did with primary school literacy and numeracy, which had created a really collaborative structure in which great practice was being shared and standards were improving. But if you went to the next borough, it would—almost because Tower Hamlets was doing it—not be doing it.

This problem of practice getting trapped within institutions has always been there and remains an issue in education. One of the things I set up post-Department was Challenge Partners, which is about sharing practice across the system and trying to use some of the school-to-school collaboration ideas we had in London Challenge. That is powerful and effective, and where that is working it is good.

The best collaboration in the system at the moment is within academy trusts, because they are under a common governance and people are sharing practice very openly. The next challenge is how we share practice and get collaboration working beyond the trust. We do a lot of work on that: working to support schools that are struggling, sharing leaders and leadership, sharing our subject advisers beyond the trust, working with governors and leaders in other trusts to support them, trying to be part of professional development programmes for leaders and staff, and offering our curriculum resources and our professional development beyond the trust.

Of course, the risk is that people think you have some ulterior motive for doing that or that it is predatory. It is an ongoing piece of work. I think it always will be ongoing within the education system.

None Portrait The Chair
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We will have to leave this evidence session there; we have come to the end of our time for it. I thank all three witnesses for their evidence. We will now move on to the next panel, but I will have to suspend briefly because one of the next witnesses is online and we have to make sure that we can get the connection right before we start.

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None Portrait The Chair
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There is time for a few brief questions from Members.

Catherine Atkinson Portrait Catherine Atkinson
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Q How do you think the Bill will help to stop children falling through the net? How can it help to support families, in the cost of living crisis, with the costs associated with school?

Catherine McKinnell: Those are two quite big issues. Do you want to start on cost savings, Stephen?

Stephen Morgan: As we have heard today, too many children are growing up in poverty in our country, and that is why it is important that the ministerial taskforce concludes later this year and decides what actions can be taken forward. As of 2023, one in four children were in absolute poverty, and that is why I am so pleased with the many measures that will make a big difference to children’s lives up and down the country. Take breakfast clubs, which we know are good for attainment, behaviour and attendance: they will put £450 per child, per year, back in the pockets of parents, but also bring real benefits to children. More broadly, the commitments around uniform limits will make a real difference, as we have heard today, and will save the average parent £50. A series of measures in the Bill will make a real difference in the cost of living challenges that parents up and down the country are facing. Thank you for the question.

Catherine McKinnell: On keeping children safe, I know that this is an area that you have spent a lot of time working in and have spoken about. The register of children not in school will be an important step, and has had cross-party support in this House for some time. We will also have the single unique identifier, which will be a way of making sure that information about a child does not fall through the gaps, and that children do not fall through the safety gap.

There is also a whole raft of changes that aim to ensure that multi-agency working is embedded in our approach to safeguarding, as well as measures to try to keep children within the family unit, wherever that is possible, and strengthen the approach to kinship care. We have put funding in place to support local kinship care arrangements and are trialling better information being available. There is a range of measures, and clearly this is a big priority for us in the Bill.

Damian Hinds Portrait Damian Hinds
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Q I am conscious that we are short of time. This Bill is really like two Bills, with the children and social care section and the schools section. Were there discussions about making it two separate Bills? You could have pressed on at all speed with the social care material, which has been around for quite a long time—some of it was in the 2022 Act. That would have enabled you to have a Green Paper, a White Paper and pre-legislative scrutiny, and perhaps to address more of the questions up front.

Catherine McKinnell: I appreciate the premise of the right hon. Gentleman’s question. I appreciate that he is very experienced in this place and that he has had the experience of being in government for quite some time, and having the opportunity to do all those things and make the necessary changes. We wanted to move as fast as we could to make the impact that children need to see, particularly in safeguarding. We also wanted to make the long thought-through changes to our school system to support our opportunity mission and break down those barriers to ensure that every child has every opportunity to succeed. Admittedly, we are not going to lose any time in making the changes that we want to see, and we have the opportunity in the parliamentary time allocated to us.