Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Gibb(1 year, 12 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
My hon. Friend is right; attendance at school is key to a child’s life chances, but the pandemic has affected some children, particularly some with special educational needs and disabilities. We are working with headteachers, teachers and children’s social care to help to overcome the barriers that those children face in returning to school, be they mental health issues, driven in part by the lockdown, or having fallen further behind in their studies. As I have said, we have committed £5 billion on catch-up programmes and one-to-one tutoring, focused on the children who have fallen furthest behind.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I am not sure I do welcome the Secretary of State to her new post, because she was such a good co-chair of the acquired brain injuries programme board in her previous job. The Minister will know very well, as will the Secretary of State, that one thing that sometimes affects attendance at school is kids who have had brain injuries. For the first few months, everybody understands in the school but perhaps a year later their executive function is not as well developed as it might be, they have problems with attendance, they end up being treated like a naughty child and they end up in the criminal justice system. Will the Secretary of State make sure that her Department plays as strong a part as she previously did in making sure that we have a national strategy on acquired brain injury, so that we do not let our kids down?
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman is right: we need to make sure that every child, no matter what injuries they have suffered, and what cognitive problems or mental health problems they face, are able to thrive in our schools system, and we will do precisely what he suggests.
Parental Involvement in Teaching: Equality Act
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Gibb(5 years, 5 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
We will certainly be providing materials to schools, together with the guidance published today, on how to consult and engage with parents on this issue. At Education questions yesterday, the Secretary of State made clear his view on the importance of teaching about LGBT issues in schools, including primary schools, and I have written articles, and so on. We will continue to make the case for the importance of RSE.
Chris Bryant
I think we are all excited by the Minister moving slightly leftwards, and I am grateful to him. Is it not also worth pointing out the irony that many parents who are particularly concerned about their children growing up might want to know that good sex and relationships education nearly always leads to children delaying their first sexual experience, making fewer risky decisions when they do so and making more informed choices? Surely that can only be in the interests of every single child.
Nick Gibb
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and he puts it better than I could. He will have seen the guidance, which was published in draft and is now in its final form, and it sets out the important aspects of all the issues he has cited and what we believe should be taught in our schools.
Nick Gibb
No, what I am saying is that we need to leave these very sensitive decisions to the teachers on the ground and to the headteachers of the schools themselves, because they are best placed to make decisions that cannot be made at a national level and that will apply to all schools in all communities. What we are clear about is that children must be taught about LGBT relationships, and that they must be taught the relationships curriculum. No other Government have delivered such a policy. It is the right policy, but I strongly believe that it needs to have the consensus of the religious organisations, as well as Stonewall, to enable it to land effectively in our schools; and I believe that it is landing successfully in our schools.
Chris Bryant
I agree with the Minister to the extent that it should, of course, be up to the school and the teachers to make the decision about what is age-appropriate. However, he seemed to be suggesting that it was only once homophobic bullying had arisen in a school that a school would start talking about respect for gay people and that it was only once a gay couple who are parents of a child appeared in the school that this subject should be taught. I am sure that that is not what he really means. I hope he can clarify his point.
Nick Gibb
I was trying to give an example of a situation where, after consultation, a school may well want to change their policy because of events that have happened in the school. It might be that the school had, ab initio, decided to teach about LGBT issues at an earlier stage in the primary school curriculum. Schools are perfectly entitled to do that. If a school wanted to change its policy, it might consult parents. It would then be the policy of the school going forward, regardless of whether any of those issues arose and regardless of whether the school knew or did not know about the parental background of its pupils.
Education
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Gibb(5 years, 8 months ago)
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Nick Gibb
Yes, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has just told me that he and I would be keen to meet the hon. Gentleman and the other members of the all-party group to discuss these really important issues. The guidance refers to the importance of teaching children about the importance of rationing time spent online, given that it detracts from other aspects of life, such as sleeping, friends, talking to parents and doing homework.
I acknowledge the significant input we had from external organisations and educational professionals, from the tens of thousands of individuals who contributed to the call for evidence and public consultation, and indeed from right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House who contributed constructively.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
One reason I support the Government’s move is that all the evidence shows that good sex and relationships education enables youngsters to delay their first experience of sex, make healthier decisions about their sexual relationships and to enter into healthier sexual relationships throughout their whole lives. Does the Minister not find it utterly depressing that the one bit that people seem to object to is that pupils might be “exposed”—not my word, but other people’s—to the fact that there are homosexuals in society, and is that not deeply painful to gay parents, to children who might be gay or have gay uncles, aunts or other family members and to gay teachers?
Nick Gibb
One of the key elements of relationships education is ensuring that children are aware, including in primary schools, that loving families can be made up of two mothers, two fathers or one mother and one father. Children are being taught that other family structures are just as loving and caring as their own. There is a consensus on that among all right hon. and hon. Members.
The responses and submissions have helped to finalise the statutory guidance and regulations. It is clear, as was reflected in the Government consultation response, that there are understandable and legitimate areas of contention, but it is also clear that for many people the subjects and their content are important to help equip children and young people to manage the challenges they face. It is important to provide clear and concise guidance for schools. In reviewing responses and determining the final content, we have retained a focus on the core principles for the new subjects that Parliament endorsed through the Children and Social Work Act 2017.
Those principles are that the subjects should help to keep children safe, help to prepare them for the world in which they are growing up, including its laws, and help to foster respect for others and for difference. The content included must be developmentally and age-appropriate, and it must be taught in a sensitive and inclusive way that respects the backgrounds and beliefs of pupils. We believe that in developing the accompanying statutory guidance and required content for these subjects, we have struck the right balance between prescribing the core knowledge that all pupils should be taught and allowing flexibility for schools to design a curriculum that is relevant to their pupils.
Parents and carers are the prime teachers for children, and schools complement and reinforce that role by building on what pupils learn at home. That is why we decided to strengthen the requirement for schools to consult parents on their relationships and relationships and sex education policy by enshrining it in the regulations as well as the guidance.
Homophobic Bullying (Schools)
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Gibb(12 years, 5 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South (Iain Stewart) on securing a debate on an issue of great importance and on his very moving and powerful speech. I know that this is a matter of interest to him; he asked the Secretary of State for Education about the Government’s plans to tackle homophobic bullying in the debate on the schools White Paper in November 2010. In reply, my right hon. Friend said:
“Homophobic bullying is on the rise in our schools, and homophobic terms are increasingly used towards gay students and straight students in a way that seeks to undermine the tolerance that we have built up over the past 15 years. We therefore need to work with organisations such as Stonewall and the Anti-Bullying Alliance, and to shine the light on schools such as St George’s Church of England school, which has done a fantastic job in tackling homophobic bullying. This requires work not only by school leaders but by political leaders and all of society to tackle a growing prejudice that is scarring our tolerant society.”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 278.]
The Government are committed to tackling this issue. In the coalition programme for Government, we said:
“We will help schools tackle bullying in schools, especially homophobic bullying.”
In the White Paper that my hon. Friend referred to—“The Importance of Teaching”—we said that we would
“empower head teachers to take a strong stand against bullying, especially racist, homophobic and other prejudice-based bullying.”
My hon. Friend the Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw) was right to equate pejorative terms used against gay people, or the pejorative use of terms such as “gay”, with the racist phrases that we have almost managed to eliminate from schools owing to the action taken in the ’70s and ’80s. We now need the same approach to the use of phrases directed against gay people.
Bullying, for whatever reason, is absolutely unacceptable and should not be tolerated in our schools. It can have a devastating effect on individuals. It can bring misery, distress, fear and in extreme cases, such as the tragic case referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South, suicide. It has no place either in our schools or in wider society. The figures tell their own story: according to the TellUs survey data published in February 2010, 26% of children had been bullied in school in the preceding year and 21% had been bullied outside school. Overall, 46% of pupils experienced bullying at school at some point in their lives.
The Anti-Bullying Alliance in 2011 found that a quarter of 11 to 16-year-olds have directly experienced verbal bullying, with the vast majority of it—79%—happening at school. Almost 40% reported being bullied online or by mobile phone. In 2011, Beatbullying figures showed that more than a third of young people aged between 16 and 25 reported having suffered a severe physical or sexual attack during childhood by a fellow young person. Beatbullying’s 2009 research of 11 to 18-year-olds found that more than 60% had witnessed some form of cyber-bullying. Stonewall reported that two thirds of lesbian, gay and bisexual pupils have been victims of bullying.
Homophobic bullying is often directed at heterosexual pupils as well. Stonewall found that 98% of young gay pupils hear the word “gay” used as a form of abuse at school. Even when the language is used pejoratively without thinking, it is still offensive and still unacceptable. I expect teachers to react in the same way as they would to an offensive racial slur.
We know that poor behaviour can affect attainment. Pupils who said that they had misbehaved in most classes had lower predicted key stage 4 attainment—predicting a capped GCSE score 29 points lower than those who said that they had not misbehaved. Bullying can have a serious effect on the education of children and young people, as my hon. Friend said. Our schools must be safe and calm places where pupils can study free from disruption, and that includes being free from the distraction and distress that comes with being the target of bullying. Ensuring good behaviour and tackling bullying is therefore central to meeting the Government’s priority of closing the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers.
It is important that schools take the necessary action to ensure good behaviour and to prevent and tackle bullying. We cannot dictate how they should do that, but we have made available clear and succinct advice. That includes the checklist prepared by Charlie Taylor, the Government’s expert adviser on behaviour, of the key principles that head teachers may wish to follow to improve behaviour in their schools. In addition, we have updated our advice to schools on preventing and tackling bullying. Schools have a specific legal duty to tackle bullying, and we know that they need clear anti-bullying policies and procedures. Our advice gives information on how to prevent and deal with bullying. It sets out the action that schools can consider when determining their approach to bullying, and it explains the legal powers that schools have to discipline pupils when bullying incidents occur off the school premises. It signposts schools to specialist organisations that can provide further help, such as Stonewall and Beatbullying.
I should like to recognise the work of organisations such as Stonewall, the Anti-Bullying Alliance, Beatbullying, Educational Action Challenging Homophobia and the Diana Award in highlighting this important issue. In April, I was pleased to be invited to speak at an event that the Diana Award had organised for its anti-bullying ambassadors. Those young people play an important part in tackling bullying in their schools and communities and set an example to others.
Alongside our advice and guidance for schools, we have given teachers the legal powers that they need to ensure good behaviour. Under the Education Act 2011, we have strengthened their powers to search pupils. New search powers have given teachers stronger powers to tackle cyber-bullying by providing a specific power to search for and, if necessary, delete inappropriate images on electronic devices, including mobile phones. We have removed the requirement to give parents 24 hours’ written notice of a detention. We have banned items such as tobacco and fireworks, which have no place in our schools; and from October, we are granting teachers anonymity when they are accused by pupils of abuse. In addition, the new system of independent review panels will ensure that decisions by schools permanently to exclude a pupil can no longer be overturned by an appeal process that can force reinstatement against the best interests of the school.
Schools are now held more closely to account for the way that they tackle bullying. New school inspection arrangements, which took effect in January, focus on four core areas: teaching, achievement, leadership, and behaviour and safety. When evaluating the behaviour and safety of pupils at the school, inspectors must consider pupils’ behaviour towards and respect for other pupils and adults. That will include freedom from bullying and harassment, including bullying based on sexual orientation and all other kinds of prejudice-based bullying.
Chris Bryant
It is all sounding a bit rosy, and, much as I recognise all that the Government are trying to do, the experience in many schools is still pretty awful. In some schools, that is because there is no proper sex and relationship education, teachers are not prepared to talk about the issues openly and properly, and there is inadequate preparation. Sometimes, school governors impede the development of proper policies. How are we going to ensure that we address those issues?
Mr Gibb
The points that the hon. Gentleman makes are important. The issue cannot be tackled overnight with any instant panacea. We have made it clear that the Government regard any form of prejudice-based bullying in schools as unacceptable. We expect teachers to take action when pejorative phrases are used, or when a pupil shouts out in the way that was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South. Teachers should take action against pupils who use those words in the same way that they would against a racial slur. Those things will not be dealt with overnight. There is no clear and simple solution, such as the solutions proposed by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant). We need a range of answers. However, one of the relevant issues is ensuring that schools have proper behaviour policies and that there is an intolerant approach to poor behaviour and bullying, from whatever cause and of whatever type. That is a key priority of the Government.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Pudsey (Stuart Andrew) pointed out, widespread access to technology such as the internet and social media outlets such as Twitter and Facebook have provided another avenue by which bullying can occur. Such bullying is not confined to the school site or day, but can happen at any time. As has been mentioned, there is no escape from bullying. Going home is no longer a safe haven from bullying for pupils.
To help children and young people to use the internet safely, the Department supports the UK Council for Child Internet Safety—a voluntary organisation that works to protect children from risks including cyber-bullying as well as harmful content, sexual images, grooming, loss of privacy and scams. Earlier this year, UKCCIS launched child internet safety guidance, including on the theme of cyberbullying. Facebook, the BBC and others are using the guidance, which should ensure that, whichever online service children use, they receive sound and consistent messages about what to do if they want to prevent harm or if they have become upset by something online.
In addition, children’s charities such as Childnet and Beatbullying, which are active UKCCIS members, offer expert advice on cyber-bullying for young people to raise awareness of online safety and how to protect themselves. Beatbullying has developed the CyberMentors peer support programme, with dedicated websites using a social networking model to allow young people to help and support one another.
Bullying is not an issue that is just for the bully and the bullied. It can affect a whole school and so can need a whole school to create an environment that prevents bullying from being a problem in the first place. Each pupil has a part to play in preventing and tackling bullying. All pupils should show respect and courtesy towards one another and should be encouraged in that by their parents. Pupils can demonstrate that attitude by not going along with a bully. As Stonewall would put it, “Don’t be a bystander.” That applies of course to teachers as well—a point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Milton Keynes South about a teacher who failed to admonish pupils for making anti-gay remarks. Prejudice-based bullying in schools, such as homophobic bullying, is unacceptable. When I spoke last July at the Stonewall “Education for All” conference I said:
“We need to send a message that homophobic bullying, of any kind and of any child, is unacceptable.”
I am happy to restate that message today and will continue to send as clear a signal as I can that we cannot and should not tolerate homophobic bullying.
I have set out our expectations of schools and what they should do to prevent and tackle bullying. We have taken action to support them by ensuring that they have the powers that they need to maintain good behaviour and discipline. We have taken action by giving them clear advice on their duties and their powers. We continue to work with specialist organisations that can provide help and advice, not just to schools, but to those who experience bullying. Schools now need to be able to demonstrate the impact of their anti-bullying policies to Ofsted. I believe that that provides a comprehensive approach to ending not just homophobic bullying, but all bullying in our schools.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Chris Bryant and Nick Gibb(12 years, 7 months ago)
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Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
I do not object to regulation as much as the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) does, so may I suggest one additional regulatory burden for schools—that every school and every child should have statutory and proper sex and relationship education? Notwithstanding the falls of recent years, this country still has a five times higher level of teenage pregnancy than Holland, and a quarter of this year’s terminations were by girls under 18. Please let us move forward.
Mr Gibb
I know that the hon. Gentleman is passionate about this subject. Sex education is compulsory in schools, but we are reviewing the personal, social, health and economic education curriculum and how the subject is taught to improve the teaching of PSHE. That is what will cover the issue that he raises.