AS-levels and A-levels

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 16th April 2013 Westminster Hall

[Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin, and to raise a matter of great concern in schools, colleges and universities throughout the country. I thank my hon. Friends who have provided so much support for this debate. Some are here today, but others could not make it. I initiated this debate on the proposed changes to AS and A-levels following a letter that I received from the chairman of Hounslow secondary head teachers and signed by all secondary head teachers in my constituency. They are baffled and concerned about the proposed changes announced earlier this year.

I am sure we all want the very best education for the young people of Britain and the highest levels of participation and attainment possible for each child. However, I am greatly concerned that the proposals announced by the Government in January will be a regressive step, with participation and attainment going backwards. Under the proposals, A-levels will be linear and taken over two years, with students sitting exams at the end of the course. AS-levels will apparently remain, but will be redesigned as stand-alone qualifications, with a slightly confused proposal that they could be delivered over one year or two. AS-levels will not contribute to A-level grades.

Head teachers in my constituency of Feltham and Heston at Feltham community college, Lampton school, St Mark’s Catholic school, Rivers academy, Heston community college, Cranford community college and other schools throughout Hounslow have written to me in an unprecedented way with their concerns. They say:

“We are baffled and concerned by the proposal to shift the AS level to a standalone qualification. In its present format, the one year course leading to a more challenging A2 course enables schools to raise standards. A-level students are more seriously motivated in year 12 when they know that they are going to be externally examined at the end of the year. In our view we are going to lose that motivation from students if we have to return to internal exams at the end of year 12.”

My head teachers are not alone. The changes have been opposed by the 24 Russell Group universities and the Association of School and College Leaders, an organisation that represents more than 80% of school heads in public and private schools and which oversees an estimated 90% of A-level entries. ASCL-affiliated organisations include the Girls Schools Association and the Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference. In addition, the National Association of Head Teachers, the Association of Colleges, the Science Council, which is made up of 39 member bodies, and the Labour party have all voiced concerns about the Government’s proposed changes to AS and A-levels.

From my discussions with the education sector, it is clear that concerns about the proposals fall within a range of areas. The first is education. Let us be clear that AS-levels are a success story. According to the Joint Council for Qualifications, the take-up of AS and A-levels has shown an upward trajectory since 2003 with more than 500,000 more AS-level certificates awarded and more than 100,000 more A-level certificates awarded last year.

My schools believe that that stepping-stone approach to building on educational attainment with choice, diversity and flexibility has kept up a love of learning, and for those who may never have expected to do A-levels or to go to university it has opened a door. They have also said to me that, instead of forcing specialisation early, keeping options open and enabling a later choice of A-level subjects has kept many pupils in post-16 education when they might otherwise have opted out.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I am following the hon. Lady’s argument closely. She referred to the increased uptake of AS and A2-levels since 2003. Will she acknowledge that the average cost to the average secondary school roughly doubled over that same period to close to £100,000 just on exam entries?

[Seema Malhotra]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I will certainly come back to cost, which has been raised as a concern about the changes. There is a suggestion of possible increased costs for schools trying to provide A-levels alongside AS-levels in a way that is not coherent.

I was talking about education reasons. We have seen increased uptake, and anecdotal evidence suggests that a contribution to the increase in A-levels being attained has been made by AS-levels being a stepping stone. Those who choose not to go on to A-levels have an option to leave at the end of the first year with an advanced qualification. It has arguably also increased the uptake of subjects such as maths, which are perceived to be tougher, because of the option to try a subject and see how it develops.

There is a strong argument for social mobility in keeping the current system. Divorcing AS-levels from A-levels is not only a poor education policy, but a poor social policy due to the removal of that stepping stone, which often gives confidence to talented pupils from poorer backgrounds to apply to a more highly selective university, helping to widen participation.

The Headmasters and Headmistresses Conference—the organisation representing leading private schools—has described the proposals as “rushed and incoherent”. The Russell Group of leading research universities said that it was “not convinced” that the change was necessary, and that it would make it harder to identify bright pupils from working-class homes. Even the Conservative Chairman of the Select Committee on Education, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), has questioned the proposals, suggesting that some young people could be left behind.

Leading universities oppose the Government’s plans because they will reduce confidence among young people who get good results in year 12 but may not have the confidence to go on to apply for the top universities after year 13.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

It is difficult for us to understand how young people are at 16, and how much they are exploring their way in the world. That is a good thing, and one of the things that we should do is to provide a framework that helps them to make the right choices. Sometimes, allowing them a little more choice and flexibility—25% more subjects post-16—enables them to choose differently according to their experience. At 17, they are much more mature than at 16. People mature at different rates, too. I am not surprised by the story about someone taking A-level English as the fourth choice—English in that example could be replaced by any subject—and at the end of the period of post-16 study going on to study it, or a subject that it significantly underpins, at university, or indeed going into employment related to it. That is not unusual in my experience of working day in, day out, for 30-odd years, with 16 to 19-year-olds. It has been a familiar story since 2000.

Before 2000, people did not have that flexibility and choice. The curriculum was far less able to get the best out of young people. The dramatic change brought about by Curriculum 2000 allowed youngsters to continue with a broader programme and delay the final specialisation until the end of year 12. That meant that those advising students could encourage them to take more risks—to stick with physics as well as music alongside their maths and geography, keeping their options open longer, or encouraging them to do a modern foreign language for another year. What students would chose to focus on at the end of year 12 was often different from what they might have focused on at the end of year 11. People who have not worked with 16 to 18-year-olds, as I have for many years, might be surprised at how much young people mature in their first year of post-16 education, and how much their focus can change after they have been informed by another year’s study and another year’s consideration of what they intend to do next.

The current system allows students to choose four subjects at AS-level before specialising in three at A-level or taking all four through to full A-levels. There is a significant jump in difficulty from GCSE to A-level, as my hon. Friend the Member for North West Durham has indicated, and the AS has assisted students so that they can choose a broader range of subjects before specialising in year 13. Denying students that choice risks denying them the opportunity to discover a particular aptitude or passion for subject areas in which they previously had less confidence and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has indicated, it is liable most negatively to affect students from the most disadvantaged backgrounds, who are most likely to be less confident.

My understanding of the Government’s current plans—and they are fluid, rather like a young person’s—is that although they will allow the content of the AS to be within the A-level initially, they intend, once the change is embedded, that A-levels and AS-levels will have distinct content, as they did pre-2000. If that is the case, it will be uneconomical for AS-levels to be taught and they will wither on the vine, because it will no longer be possible to co-teach them in the same class as A-levels. That is significant, because the pre-2000 history of AS-levels shows they never really got much traction.

The removal of AS as a stepping-stone qualification will almost certainly reduce the uptake of subjects that are regarded as relatively harder at A-level than at GCSE, and I suspect that there will be an impact on languages and mathematics in particular. Without validation at the stepping stone point, less confident students are likely to be discouraged from embarking on the A-level. With validation, there is less risk to the individual, who can always bank an AS at the end of one year and focus on their other three subjects at A-level.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is, of course, extremely experienced in and knowledgeable about these matters, but does he know of evidence that suggests that the fourth AS-level tends to be a hard subject rather than one of the subjects that some people would consider to be less hard? Or is it the opposite?

[Nic Dakin]

For a start, when we are dealing with young people, we are dealing with a collection of individual choices. In my experience, as someone who has spent a lot of time advising young people and encouraging them to make choices, if they are focusing on three subjects, languages are often vulnerable to not being tried. What turns out to be someone’s fourth subject—the one they drop down to AS—might not have been their fourth subject when they picked it. We can play around with statistics, but what is important is the impact on the young person at the point of choice, when they decide on their post-16 programme. Being able to do four AS-levels and then either take all four through to full A-levels or to bank one, increases the flexibility of choice, minimises risk and encourages people to take subjects that would be beneficial to them—mathematics, for instance.

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend knows what he is talking about, and the Association of Colleges backs what he says. In the briefing for this debate the association states that

“the removal of the AS as a stepping-stone may well reduce the take-up of subjects which are regarded as significantly harder at A-level than at GCSE,”

in particular,

“maths and modern languages.”

[Damian Hinds]

My question was about what the evidence was, not the effect.

[Nic Dakin]

The hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds) is nothing if not persistent in asking questions that it is right and proper to ask and to answer, but evidence in this area is complex, as I hope I have illustrated.

When the Secretary of State says that he will divorce AS-levels from A-levels, but will retain AS-levels because he is “keen to preserve” breadth, he demonstrates that he is a master of irony. All the evidence of the past—and of the present—is that that will do exactly the opposite. The change will map on to the narrowing of the curriculum being driven forward by the EBacc in key stage 4, and with the focus on facilitating subjects post-16, it will ensure that the UK moves backwards, to pursue a narrow curriculum prescribed by a nanny-state Government who know best. The Minister shakes his head, but in reality the proposal is about the imposition of a centralised curriculum, compared with the move towards the personalisation of the curriculum over the past few years, which takes the individual forward, within a proper framework, in a direction that drives achievement and progression. It is a personalised curriculum that has been building the success fit for competing in the modern world, and that is what we really need.

--- Later in debate ---

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and therein lies the real risk. My fear is that we have a series of changes—and divorcing the AS from the A-level is a significant one—that will increase student failure and make the UK less ready to compete globally. We will rue the day if the Government do not think carefully and consider the evidence that is presented to them. For example, David Igoe, chief executive of the Sixth Form Colleges Association, wrote to the Secretary of State:

“Our curriculum leaders, and the clear majority of teaching professionals and college and school leaders believe that the AS qualification should be retained in its current form. We also believe AS has the support of a very large number of academics and admission tutors”.

Of 780,000 A-level entries, 439,000 were in sixth-form colleges, so such people know what they are talking about.

The Secretary of State rightly sets great store by the needs of the Russell Group universities. They are great universities, of which we are rightly proud, but they hardly struggle to recruit or compete. That is a good thing, but focusing on their needs to the detriment of everyone else’s might not only be flattering—and embarrassing —to them but might be trying to fix a problem that does not exist. Out of more than 300 institutions listed by UCAS, only 24 are Russell Group universities, and all those institutions and their students matter to UK plc.

[Damian Hinds]

Does the hon. Gentleman recall the meetings that he, I, and others in the Chamber attended, in which we met representatives of some of those universities who did not seem to think that there was a problem that did not exist?

[Nic Dakin]

I do not recall their outlining a problem that does exist, and certainly not one that would be solved by the proposal. My hon. Friend the Member for Feltham and Heston has already mentioned the serious concerns of Cambridge university about the impact of the change.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

Apart from the strange explanations that we get from Ministers about trying to free up some time for people to do other things in year 12, the only reason that I have heard is that it relates to the experience of the Ministers in the Department and that they want to go back to the good old days when four out of five of them were in private school doing their A-levels. Perhaps they think, “It was good enough for me; why shouldn’t it be good enough for everyone else?” If that is what they are doing, they are ignoring the evidence.

I challenge the Minister today as someone who says that he is committed to fairness, who is a Liberal Democrat Minister, who has enjoyed the privilege of a fee-paying education and a Cambridge university education and who claims to be committed to social justice. How can he defend this policy in the light of the clear and thoroughly researched evidence that it will result in university entry becoming less fair?

[Damian Hinds]

We must be a little bit careful with this widening participation and access argument. Although it is undeniably true that many more young people have gone to university in the past 10 years, the figures show that the intake of the most selective universities has changed very little by comparison. Of course it is a very good thing that more young people have gone to those universities, but we must not confuse the two things and say that AS-levels have been a force that has made Cambridge university much more open.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Gentleman makes my point for me. Cambridge has been the university that has most used AS-levels to bring about widening access. It can show that it has widened access as a result of them in the past 10 years. If he wants to challenge the admissions tutors on the claim that they have successfully widened access through the use of AS-levels, he is free to do so. They are absolutely clear about it and say that if AS-levels disappear, university entry will become less fair. The Minister must answer that point. So far, Ministers have failed to answer it, or to explain why they are persisting with the policy.

In any case, the Government accept that Cambridge is right, and presumably that the Russell Group, the 1994 Group, Universities UK, the Association of Colleges, the Sixth Form Colleges Association, the National Union of Students, the teachers and head teachers associations and we, God forbid, are right about the usefulness of AS-levels. Nevertheless, the Government will proceed with the damaging and unnecessary divorce of AS-levels from A-levels. Like the EBacc certificates, no one supports the move. The Government quite rightly abandoned their proposals on the EBacc. The Minister might well have had an influence on that decision. Who knows? It happened to coincide with his appointment to the Department. As I said earlier, we will not proceed with the divorce of the AS-level from the A-level, and everyone should be aware of that.

Curriculum and Exam Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 7th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I think the real harm occurs when children are at schools where teaching is not of a good quality, and where ambitions and aspirations for those children are insufficiently high. One of the problems we have experienced in the past is that employers have said that some qualifications—including those introduced under the last Government—do not command confidence. That is a tragedy, but today we are playing a part in the ending of it.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I greatly welcome the move away from the blunt, simplistic “five-plus C-plus” measure involving the “three perverse incentives” to which my right hon. Friend referred. Will he strive to make the new progress measure a lot simpler and easier to understand than “contextual value added”, which was so complex that it was hardly ever used?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend—who used to be a member of the Education Committee—has made a very good point. One of the other problems with contextual value added was that it seemed to embed a culture of low expectations by automatically assuming that students from particular ethnic minority backgrounds would do less well. The “value added” measure that we hope to introduce will be clearer and simpler, and will also embed high expectations for every student.

A-level Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

No, I do not expect that. We are talking about the extended project qualification, going alongside A-levels, but the point about A-levels is that there will be a terminal exam.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

I welcome these reforms. We know that more universities have had to change their first-year course content or put on extra classes, especially in subjects such as maths. Are not universities best placed to design qualifications at the age of 18, as they will have to deal with the output?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. The important point here is that the Russell Group has agreed to be part of this process; it wants to be involved. I think there is an increasing appetite for that among universities across the board. Universities UK has also expressed its interest because universities want to know that the students entering their institutions are well prepared. In certain subjects, academics have been very concerned about the level of preparation. They have quite often found that there is a difference between independent school students who get extra tuition and those currently doing A-levels in state schools.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I am happy to say that what was an academic education limited to a narrow elite in the 1950s is now being extended to more and more children. I am very sorry that the snobbish attitude that prevails on the Labour Benches—[Interruption.] It is interesting to see Labour Members uniting behind a view that academic education should be available only to a minority, and it is a unique historic trap into which they are falling by endorsing the idea that English, maths, science and modern foreign languages should somehow be denied to young people. What a pity that the party that once stood up for ragged-trousered philanthropists is now standing up for closed-minded reaction.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Despite the concerns that have been expressed about arts and creative subjects, is it not true that there is plenty of room in the curriculum for young people who are interested in studying those subjects, even while taking the full English baccalaureate suite?

[Michael Gove]

Yes, and I find it curious that there are those who say, for example, that English literature is not a subject that encourages creativity. The assault on the subjects in the English baccalaureate betrays the most narrow of mindsets, whereby the only things that are creative are those which fall within a particularly narrow spectrum. I think that scientists are creative; I think that those who study physics are capable of creativity; I think that geographers are creative; I think that historians are creative. To have Labour Members attacking those subjects as somehow not being creative and not being appropriate for the 21st century is as revealing as the dog that did not bark in Sherlock Holmes’s story.

Examination Reform

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)]

I am going to take advantage of the fact that the Secretary of State has decided to conclude the debate by taking the risk of trying to persuade him to change his mind. I do not know why I think I might succeed in that when so many more eminent people than me, including Sir Nicholas Serota and Dame Liz Forgan, have failed, but I think it is worth a crack. The Secretary of State will be bored by what I am about to say, as I have asked him many questions on this subject, but I believe it is worth another crack because he is a relatively cultured member of the Cabinet. He is one of those rare creatures who still read books, and he recognises the value of creativity.

I have been going on about this subject for some time. My argument is that the Secretary of State should add a further subject to the suite of subjects in the EBacc, so that it is not all about pupils writing out what other people have thought, but is also about them creating objects and learning for themselves. In March 2011, I asked the Secretary of State why 60% of schools that responded to a survey said the introduction of the EBacc had resulted in a narrowing of the curriculum. His general response to me at that point—before I had started being very boring—was rather positive. He said my argument was well-made and he sympathised with it.

I have also been badgering the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport on this subject. In November she said:

“The hon. Lady needs to understand that the English baccalaureate has creativity at its heart.”—[Official Report, 22 November 2012; Vol. 553, c. 708.]

Frankly, however, it does not, and that is the problem. It is an examination, or suite of examinations, about knowledge. I agree with the hon. Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Mr Gibb) that it is very important that people learn stuff, but I also believe that educational achievement is about finding out how to do things. We need to learn things, but education must not be just about learning other people’s facts.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Do not the kind of tests the hon. Lady is criticising also involve synthesis and analysis?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Indeed, but the point is that pupils are analysing other people’s achievements and creations. One of the reasons why our country outperforms all our competitors in the number of Nobel prizes won is because we have a tradition in our learning and education that combines creative education and learning how to create with excellent science education. That is why we are able to produce so many innovative achievers.

[Damian Hinds]

When all these Nobel prizewinners were at school, were subjects such as art and music option subjects or compulsory curriculum subjects?

[Fiona Mactaggart]

Members on the Government Benches have said a number of times that there is space in the curriculum for these subjects. The problem, which none of them has yet addressed, is that since the introduction of the EBacc, school after school has reduced provision in those subjects. A tool is available, which the Government have chosen not to use. I do not think there is a respectable argument not to include in the EBacc at least one subject in which a young person’s creativity is what is assessed. I am arguing not for the exclusion of anything, but for the inclusion of assessment in subjects such as design and technology, music, art and drama.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

A short while ago, the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Cardiff West (Kevin Brennan), challenged the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Dan Rogerson) to say what he objected to in the motion. I must say that we new MPs are used to seeing rather stronger worded motions than today’s, which makes me wonder whether the Opposition’s heart is really in it. The motion talks in general terms about requiring a rethink, but without specifying or committing to the things that they think are wrong and the things they would do differently.

The Opposition cite a few opponents of the Government’s plans, however, and they are worth reflecting on. Business, they say, is opposed. My experience from the Education Committee was that, if we were looking for a unified voice from business on qualifications and so on, good luck! To the extent that there is a unified voice, however, it is complaining about the things that the hon. Member for Sefton Central (Bill Esterson) talked about—employability and workplace skills—but it is talking about the young people coming through the system now, not about some change that might happen in the future.

The Opposition also cite as opponents the champions of vocational qualifications, but that ignores the fact that the Government are also reforming vocational education and training. They have commissioned the Wolf review and are now implementing it. We must recognise, however, that Alison Wolf states, again and again, the value of academic qualifications alongside vocational qualifications. It should not be seen as an either/or. From a social mobility perspective, we know that countries with earlier specialisation tend to be associated with lower levels of social mobility, whereas those in which people specialise later do better in that regard.

On the creative industries and the arts, I had the opportunity recently to have a fascinating discussion with Mr Julian Lloyd Webber. Of course, any lobby or interest group will lobby to have its subject as part of the suite of subjects that has this name—many of us will have benefited from hearing from a lot of religious education teachers, for example. On the arts and creative industries, however, the argument is based on a false premise. Britain is a world leader in these industries—a world leader in the arts—but that was achieved without those subjects being forced on pupils in school, with or without a national curriculum.

When the shadow Secretary of State was at school, when you were at school, Madam Deputy Speaker, when I was at school—when all of us were at school—in most schools, art and music were optional subjects at aged 15 and 16 and they were over and above a set of subjects that pretty much everybody would do. The EBacc suite—[Interruption] I like the word “suite”—is not a compulsory set of subjects.

[Mr Ward]

What the hon. Gentleman says about the education we received many years ago is true, but back then there was not a national league table by which the institution was judged on the basis of whether it had an A-level in art, drama or whatever. That is the fundamental change that has taken place.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is right to identify that, and it is that focus on the five-plus C-plus—almost regardless of what subjects they are in, with the exception of English and maths, which have held an elevated position—that has caused the problems that now need to be addressed. Even if the Ebacc were made up of a compulsory set of subjects, there would still be ample room in the curriculum for optional subjects, just as there always has been.

I would never claim that everything that happened between 1997 and 2010 in education was bad, but I am afraid that this whole system around qualifications, examinations and league tables is one area where things went badly awry. This was a time of stiffening international competition, yet in this country, we had grade inflation, smashing all domestic records, while slipping down the international league tables. That eroded confidence in the system, and the people that lets down are not the politicians, but the young people themselves.

Although the current shadow Secretary of State rightly acknowledges the existence of grade inflation, that is a relatively new road-to-Damascus conversion for the Labour party. Until relatively recently, it was keen to keep hammering on that all the improvements in children’s outcomes were actually real improvements and that we should celebrate them, rather than criticise them.

[Stephen Twigg]

rose—

[Damian Hinds]

Both those things are true, which is possibly the point the hon. Gentleman wanted to make, and I absolutely acknowledge the real improvements. We may have brighter kids, and we certainly have more engaged parents and families, better teaching and teachers, better recognition of special educational needs and different styles of learning and all sorts of things that we would expect to improve over time, and which have. On top of that, however, there has without doubt been grade inflation and gaming of the system on an epic scale, and that is what these reforms seek to address. It is worth listing some of those points further.

[Ian Mearns]

I am grateful to my honourable Friend—I will call him my friend because we are friends—for giving way. When I took over as chair of the education committee in Gateshead in 1993, in the previous year fewer than 30% of youngsters got five good GCSEs. In Gateshead the figure is about 80% now—although it is about 55% including English and maths. We cannot honestly think that the vast majority of that change in 20 years was due to grade inflation.

[Damian Hinds]

I cannot tell the hon. Gentleman—and friend—exactly what proportion is accounted for by what. I celebrate the achievements of the children in his constituency and that area, and of those schools. We should never be reluctant to do that: their achievement is fantastic. Some element of that has been a real improvement; what I am saying is that there is also another element. Indeed, I think that everybody across the political spectrum and throughout almost the entire educational establishment—we are still working on the National Union of Teachers—now acknowledges what is a blindingly obvious fact.

The three areas where the gaming and the inflation take place are in the mechanics of the system, the subject mix and competition between boards—I want to return to the point that the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) raised.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I think I ought to plough on, if I may.

On the mechanics, so many things can be done with the syllabus content and breadth, through modularisation, resits, early takes and, potentially, the questions set and the stringency of marking, although certainly—we extracted this over some weeks in our Select Committee inquiry—an upwards-only tolerance in the expected outcomes across a cohort of students around the country. In other words, every year there is a certain level that we would expect to reach. We could be either side of it; in reality, things only ever went one way, leading to in-built inflation in the system. The second area is the subject mix. It is beyond doubt—some of the statistics that my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) and others mentioned bear this out—that some children have been steered towards subjects that were not the most appropriate for them to study, but which suited their schools in terms of how they would appear in the league tables. Then there was the debacle over so-called equivalences.

The third point—a few hon. Members have mentioned this today—is competition between exam boards. It has been suggested that there is not really a problem with competition between exam boards so long as we separate the organisation setting the exam and the organisation doing the syllabus or specification. I can absolutely see the arguments for having competition at the operational level—delivering exam papers and that sort of thing—but I just do not see the argument for competition in either the specification or the setting of exams. So much of this debate—including when we had it in the Select Committee with some of the exam boards and others—is all about accessibility. I worry about the word “accessibility”. It is a good word—we want more people to be able to access things—but it ends up being used to mask all sorts of other things, all of which ends up meaning: “Well, if we just make it that tiny bit easier, more people will want to do it.”

The bad effects of the competition between different exam boards can be seen in little unexplained spikes in market share for individual boards in individual subjects and in more and more schools using multiple boards for different subjects. The average number of exam boards per school is now about three, which is pretty remarkable when we consider that there are only four boards altogether. That means that almost all schools are using almost all boards. As reported relatively recently in The Times Educational Supplement, there are also relatively new trends, such as schools entering children for GCSE and IGCSE at the same time, to see which one comes out better, or entering with different, multiple boards for early modules and examinations, to see which is likely to give them the best chances of progressing.

Through all this, we without doubt came to a point where we had too much teaching to the test, with children in some schools—not all schools—having a much narrower experience than they should have had. Schools have been paying £100,000 a year on examination entries—a number that doubled in just a few years. It is worth reflecting that had that not happened, we could have had a lot more teachers in this country. Some children were pushed into inappropriate subject choices, with too much focus on the C/D borderline and an overall failure to equip as well as we should our young people to make the most of their talents and our nation to make the most of what we have got in the world.

We have reached the point at which the Government must reset the clock, so that we can have exams that are consistent and understood and that are pinned to the highest world standards. We must remove the race to the bottom between the different exam boards and inspire confidence in employers, in educational institutions and, above all, in young people themselves.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

School Governors

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2012 Westminster Hall

[Neil Carmichael]

That is a really important point, Mrs Main. I am suitably chastened.

If a governing body is recruiting from a relatively small pool, it will, by definition, be harder to recruit. That is my first point. My second point is whether we need to have 20 people sitting around the table. Should we not be looking at smaller governing bodies?

Governing bodies should recruit people from outside the education field as well, because it is imperative that schools have a better relationship with businesses, thereby improving career opportunities for their pupils. Part of a governing body’s role is to provide an interface between the school and future employment and further and higher education.

Let me now focus on the role of the chairman and the need for them to be properly trained and, possibly, remunerated. If we want someone who is going to spend quality time with the head teacher and who is able and willing to challenge them and to support them when they are implementing necessary changes, we need someone who has the commitment, the appropriate professional skills and, if necessary, the reward. I want to put on the table now the idea that we should be remunerating people. This is not a new idea, and it has been advanced by others, not least the chief inspector at Ofsted, and we need to consider it very carefully.

Another element of the role of the chair is whether or not they have been formally assessed. We need to introduce a system in which assessment is rigorous. We do not want a few old friends gathering around for a cup of coffee, slapping one another on the back and saying, “Hey, you have done a really good job.”

The other key person in a governing body is the clerk, and they must be someone who is capable of taking notes, ensuring that meetings run properly and advising the governing body on its statutory responsibilities and any other legal implications of its actions. I have seen too many governing bodies struggle without such advice and make inappropriate and sometimes quite useless decisions.

An issue that I have already raised in relation to one of the reports is whether, when parents have lost confidence in the school governors, they should be able to dismiss the governors en masse. That would be a final accountability mechanism that was not necessarily used often, but which was an ultimate threat. Such a mechanism would ensure that governing bodies were mindful of the need to interface properly with the parent body.

Those issues are important with respect to the chair and other aspects. On the structure of governance, I want to focus on three areas. First, it would be sensible to think in terms of more federal structures for governing bodies. The evidence is—this certainly shows up in the academies programme—that where we have governing bodies looking after more than one school, the likelihood of outstanding schools being developed is much higher. That is a statistical fact and one that we need to note. However, it is also important that we bear it in mind that good schools can spread best practice to the schools that need to improve, and through a federal or a partnership model of governance, that might happen more often and more readily. It seems to me that that is a direction of travel that has already started with the academies programme, but it should be promoted.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend think that with small rural schools, including primary schools, that sometimes have particular challenges in attracting sufficient governors, the model he described—a single governing body for multiple schools—could be especially important?

[Neil Carmichael]

I thank my hon. Friend for that very astute question, and the answer is an emphatic yes. I believe that smaller schools in rural areas would benefit from one good governing body running two or three schools, and we should also look at vertical models, by which I mean secondary schools with feeder schools and not just primary schools. To some extent, it is horses for courses, but we must put this idea on the agenda as a direction of travel to ensure that we get better governance for schools, including those that he mentioned.

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

1. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

6. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

[Simon Kirby (Brighton, Kemptown) (Con)]

10. What assessment he has made of the level of satisfaction of participants and businesses with the apprenticeship system.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vince Cable]

I do agree, but let me preface my remarks by saying what a success story the apprenticeship programme is. Not only has there been a big increase in scale—more than 60% over the last two years—but there is a very high satisfaction rate. Let me also take this opportunity to pay tribute to the work of the former Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning, the hon. Member for South Holland and The Deepings (Mr Hayes)—who has now moved on to higher things—and to welcome his excellent replacement, who is, indeed, part of an excellent BIS team.

The Holt study, which the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned, does acknowledge that there are barriers to SMEs’ access to the apprenticeship programme. We are trying to address them, most notably by channelling resources through employers rather than trainers: that will increasingly be the emphasis of the programme.

[Damian Hinds]

The Jason Holt reforms present great opportunities for the hospitality sector, which has considerable potential for employment export earnings and economic growth, but in which we need to drive productivity gains. As the quantity of apprenticeships continues to increase, how can we ensure that their quality keeps pace with it, or does better?

[Vince Cable]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to say that we need to maintain quality standards. I have asked Doug Richard, an entrepreneur with a background in this area, to give careful consideration to the quality issues and how we can shape the apprenticeship programme around genuine skills training, particularly at skill level 3 and above.

A great deal is happening in the hospitality sector. For instance, Hilton recently offered 100 new apprenticeship places. The Department will shortly hold a round-table discussion about the sector, and apprenticeships will be an important element of that.

Secondary Education (GCSEs)

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Stuart]

Fortunately, my hon. Friend takes me to the issue I wanted to address next, which is the administration of examinations. Unfortunately, however, I am unable to comment on that now. The Education Committee has conducted a long inquiry into precisely that issue, looking at the trade-offs between a single board, competition between boards, franchising by subject and various other ways of cutting it. We have concluded our report, but because of the examination season—whoever leaked this story to the press last week was obviously less sensitive than us to the fact that children were taking exams—we decided to delay the publication of our report until 3 July. So, I am afraid that, until then, I cannot engage in that issue. However, we have looked at it in depth, and I hope I am not in contempt of Parliament if I say that the Committee came up with a unanimous recommendation and report. I hope that those on both sides of the House will wait until at least 3 July before allowing any of their opinions to solidify further.

If the Secretary of State is talking about a more rigorous GCSE system—whether it is given a new name or not—which is effectively a single examination system, as we have now, that would rather destroy the entire premise of my speech, leaving me short for words.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Time for a coffee.

[Mr Stuart]

Time for a coffee and to let others speak.

However, over the last two years the Government have made a series of announcements looking to put greater rigour into the system. They announced the ending of modularisation of GCSEs, tackling the culture of re-sits, ending equivalences and promoting the English baccalaureate, which, of course, rewards those students who achieve good GCSEs in English, maths, two sciences, a language and either history or geography. However, at the end of that process, if the leak is to be believed—I am in a state of confusion now—they suddenly announced the scrapping of GCSEs altogether. That does not seem terribly coherent.

Just last June the Secretary of State said the following about GCSEs:

“So next year the floor will rise to 40 per cent and my aspiration is that by 2015 we will be able to raise it to 50 per cent. There is no reason—if we work together—that by the end of this parliament every young person in the country can’t be educated in a school where at least half of students reach this basic academic standard.”

He went on to say:

“A GCSE floor standard is about providing a basic minimum expectation to young people that their school will equip them for further education and employment.”

That was the direction of travel then; suddenly, a year later—if we are to believe the Daily Mail—that has been scrapped. On the other hand, if I understood correctly what the Secretary of State said today, that was an entirely false idea and there is no plan to do such a thing at all.

--- Later in debate ---

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

Young people are working harder in our schools than ever before, guided by probably the best ever generation of teachers. Certainly, lessons are planned and progress tracked in a way that it never was when most of us were at school. Young people are also examined more, at considerable cost to our schools—the average cost of exams to maintained secondary schools was £44,000 in 2003 and £96,000 by 2010. Those pupils and teachers are being let down by a system that has allowed the erosion of confidence in their qualifications.

There is massive pressure on schools, as we all know, from the five-plus C-plus measurement in league tables. Although it is true, as many right hon. and hon. Members have said, that there have been real improvements in educational attainment, it is also true that ever since those league table ladders were created, ingenious schools have found ever more ingenious ways of getting up them, aided and abetted by public policy and the exams industry, with things such as double awards, short courses, half GCSEs, new subjects and, of course, the granddaddy of them all, equivalents, which make a 19 percentage point difference in the league tables. If equivalents are included, 75% of children get five or more GCSEs at grade C or above, but that goes down to 56% if those equivalents are taken out.

Like economic growth, improvements in grade have both a real part and an inflationary part. The real growth comes from better teaching, better teachers and more engaged parents, and I think we have see ample evidence of those things.

[Gloria De Piero]

In that case, would the hon. Gentleman listen to a maths teacher from my constituency and the 11th most improved school in the country from 2012, who says:

“The current GCSE system allows every pupil to achieve beyond their potential and is fully recognised by employers regardless of tier”?

[Damian Hinds]

I am always happy to hear from distinguished maths teachers, but I am not quite sure how the hon. Lady’s intervention relates to or contradicts what I just said. I was saying that there have clearly been real improvements, but I do not think there is anyone left, including that distinguished maths teacher, who doubts that on top of those real improvements there has been significant grade inflation, as acknowledged by the shadow Secretary of State.

There are four key elements to the grade inflation. First, there has been the gradual easing of what we used to call the syllabus—now called the specification—on the part of the exam board. Secondly, at the school end, there has been teaching to the test. Thirdly, there have been all sorts of elements in the design of examinations, including modularity or what is now called unitising, early takes, re-sits, the use of calculators and so on. Fourthly—this sounds a bit dull and technical but it is very important—there is the statistical tolerance in the results. Every year, there is rightly a normalisation to say what results, for example, a key stage 4 cohort should get relative to what they achieved at key stage 2, with perhaps a 1% tolerance either way on a finding—but of course the tolerance only ever goes up. That is the most pure form of grade inflation.

[Mark Tami (Alyn and Deeside) (Lab)]

The hon. Gentleman is making these points about how people work within the rules to maximise the effect, but even when I was at school there were children who were thought to be marginal when it came to getting an O-level and were dissuaded because it was thought that they would skew the results and do the school down. Let us not pretend that this is something new.

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is very youthful looking but I am not sure the league tables were in place when he was at school, so I find that point slightly confusing.

Does it matter that there has been grade inflation? I think we have all heard from higher education institutions, employers in our constituencies and members of the public that it does matter. One witness who gave evidence to the Education Committee’s exams inquiry said they did not believe that employers expect to be able to compare exam results over time, but I have news for him: that is exactly what employers, higher education institutions and parents expect to be able to do, and quite justifiably so. However, the system does not support them in doing that. Although there have been many factors at play with grade inflation, there are three root causes among which there is interplay: the pressure on schools to deliver the results; the competitive land grab for volume market share on behalf of the competing exam boards; and a too malleable system that attempts to put everything on a single scale when everything does not necessarily fit together.

I think we have moved on a good way in this debate. Over the past few days, the phrase we have heard most often on this subject has been about not wanting to return to a two-tier system, but increasingly there is a recognition that there are two tiers now, with 40% of youngsters being left behind. One could even argue that there is a third tier, with the young people who are put on to other qualifications that are of so little value to them in later life. Even in the purer sense, within a single-subject GCSE there are the two tiers of the foundation level and the higher level. Although this has been talked about much today, it is in many ways the best kept secret in education. I keep finding, when I talk to the parents of 14 and 15-year-old pupils, that they are not aware of that distinction. In many ways O-levels and CSEs never went away—they were just rebranded, but into one thing.

Let us take the example of GCSE maths. If someone is entered for GCSE maths at foundation level, that decision will be taken when they are in year 10 and the highest grade they can then achieve is a grade C. That sounds very much like getting a CSE grade 1 in the 1980s. And it is not just maths. Other subjects that are tiered include biology, physics, chemistry, general science, classical civilisation, Latin, English literature, English language, geography and modern foreign languages— almost every one of the core academic subjects that most of us did at school, with the single exception of history.

[Liz Kendall]

Will the hon. Gentleman explain how having O-levels and CSEs would make that two-tier system better?

[Damian Hinds]

I have a great deal of respect for the hon. Lady, who is an erstwhile colleague of ours on the Select Committee, but I am not proposing a return to anything from the past. What we must do is build an exam and qualification system that is fit for the future and reflects the new reality in which the participation age is 18, not 16. We must make sure that all young people can reach their potential at 15 to 16 and that if they have not done so by that point, particularly in key subjects such as English and maths, they go on to do so at 16 to 18 and beyond.

[Nia Griffith]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I am sorry, but I am running very short of time.

There is a bunch of complications in this two-tier system—for example, it applies to some subjects but not others, and there are even subjects for which students can enter one paper at foundation level and still score a grade B or A. There might be good reasons for all that, but one thing this system is not is clear. I understand the argument that all must have prizes, and in some ways that seems like a good thing, but it does young people no favours to kid them that the worth of the qualifications they are taking is greater than it really is. Instead, we must strive so that all merit prizes. We should aspire to the vast majority of children getting those key subjects aged 15 and 16, but as I said in reply to the hon. Member for Leicester West (Liz Kendall), there must be the facility to return to them at age 16 to 18. One of the key points in the Wolf report was the lack of post-16 focus in our country compared with others on English and maths in particular—subjects that command a huge premium in the workplace.

[Mr Graham Stuart]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Damian Hinds]

I am sorry, but I cannot.

For our country, we need world-class exams to win in the fiercely competitive new global economy. For our young people, we need worthwhile qualifications with the right breadth, depth and usefulness that will serve them well in their work and in their life.

Safeguarding Children

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Wednesday 13th June 2012 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

This issue is a matter of the most profound importance. From time to time it is jolted to the top of the media agenda in the most awful way, as happened with Victoria Climbié, Peter Connelly and the Rochdale case. Although it might top the headlines only periodically, its extent is vast and always with us. On the Select Committee’s recent visit to Doncaster, I was taken aback by the sheer physical scale of the call centre operation dealing with calls from the public and practitioners and data entry just for that local authority area and to hear about the huge number of households in the city that social workers call on regularly. We know that in the year to 2011 there were more than 600,000 referrals to children’s social services nationally and 49,000 child protection plans initiated. As for some of the other types of abuse, such as online abuse and child-on-child abuse, we can really only start to guess at their extent.

There have of course been positive developments, which it is important to acknowledge. A number of Members have mentioned what an encouraging sign it was that the first report to be commissioned after the change of Government was the Munro report, which contains a lot of useful material. The formation of the MASH teams—the multi-agency service hubs—is clearly a development that can hopefully deliver great benefits, but we must be careful not to identify a silver bullet and think that it will solve all problems.

I hope that the Government’s troubled families programme will also signal a further positive development in this area. People go on about the 120,000 families, but it is worth noting that, in fact, there are not 120,000 families who will receive additional help that is not available to others—the 120,000 figure is a statistical construct that comes from analysis done under the previous Government and the Cabinet Office report. The initiative is about encouraging local authorities to work together and having a lead person operating on behalf of each family to try to join up services.

The other thing I welcome is the motion and the way it unites both sides of the House. My only complaint, and a tiny one, is that with a little more notice we could have got more hon. Members here. I also want to pay tribute to social workers. Clearly, social work is not a job they do for the glamour, kudos or cash; it is a hugely difficult job, sometimes done in the most horrendous circumstances. Social workers should expect our constant support and acknowledgment for the difficult job they do. As Eileen Munro said, and as the Minister repeated today, their job is all about trying to predict the ability of a parent to bring up their child and to protect the child, and at the best of times that is an inexact science. I think that elevating the status of the profession in every way we can is vital, and that includes things such as the chief social worker and a properly founded college of social work.

There will always be a tension between trying to standardise approaches on the one hand and trying to devolve decision making on the other, and the pendulum will swing from one direction to the other from time to time. I think that most people would accept that it swung too far towards the template approach, so a reduction in the several hundred pages of guidance, which were well intentioned, to a much slimmer approach marks a further move towards trusting professional judgment. When the Minister appeared before the Select Committee—he called it a gruelling grilling, but in truth it was more of a walk in the park—he gave the example of what different GPs said they would do if a mother presented with a child who had bruises and signs of potential abuse. He said that the smartest and very best GPs said that they would phone the nursery school or some other professionals to ask if they had noticed something as well and, if so, they should proceed together. That is the kind of common-sense approach and professional judgment that we all want to see. One crucial issue is that there is somebody to report an incident to, and that one knows in all cases whom to report it to and one is confident that, as appropriate, it will be acted upon. That is why the issue of thresholds, which the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) brought up earlier, is so important.

It is also important that members of the public know how to report such matters. I hate to use the word “brand” in this context, but trusted brands such as ChildLine and the NSPCC play a vital role. We heard from the head of CEOP the other day that there might be a plan to introduce a new phone number, 114, 116 or something, in order to report incidents and abuse, but it does not sound like the smartest move imaginable when there are already recognised, accepted and acknowledged channels through which people can report.

During the bulk of the time remaining to me, I want to discuss the abuse of young people by young people. I welcome the Government’s plans to extend the definition of domestic abuse to under-18s, because we really do not know the extent of these problems as they affect young people, so I also welcome the Home Affairs Committee’s focus on the area. We were all shocked to hear what the deputy children’s commissioner said the other day about the prevalence of violence and of sexual violence among young people in and out of gangs, and, as the hon. Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) said earlier, hearing that 11-year-old girls are expected to perform sexual acts on a line-up of boys makes one sick to the stomach.

One relatively new issue is sexting—a word that, when I became a Member two years ago, I had not heard of. One might have thought that it was some sort of wordplay, but now we know that it has a terrible ability to do harm and is not yet taken seriously in many different areas. When we on the Education Committee asked the head of CEOP how such matters were reported to the police, how they dealt with them and how many cases they had heard of, it became apparent that, although he obviously takes it very seriously, in many places its prevalence is not yet fully appreciated or acted upon.

A dangerous relativism can sometimes creep into this subject, even among people who clearly care and are very knowledgeable about it, and in the case of sexting, for example, one occasionally hears somebody say, “Of course, sexting can be a part of growing up and an important part of sexual discovery.” Call me old-fashioned, but I just think that that is wrong. I think that 12-year-old, 13-year-old or 14-year-old girls being forced into, coerced into or voluntarily sending naked or semi-naked pictures of themselves around the internet or on mobile phones is just plain wrong. In society, in government and in schools we have to be unafraid to say that, because if we do not, we put young girls in particular in a very difficult position at a vulnerable time of their lives, when they might be under all sorts of pressure to do all sorts of things that they do not naturally want to do. I think we owe that to them.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

Oral Answers to Questions

Damian Hinds Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2012 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

That is an excellent point. Now that more than half the number of secondary schools are either academies or en route to becoming academies, those who attack the academies programme are attacking the majority of state schools in the country. It is a pity that there are people in the Labour party who are enemies of state education at a time when so many great head teachers are taking advantage of academy freedoms to raise standards for all.

[Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)]

12. What steps he plans to take to improve the quality of teaching.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Mr Nick Gibb)]

Nothing has more impact on children’s achievement at school than the quality of the teaching that they receive. We are raising the bar for new teachers, helping existing teachers to improve, and, when teachers cannot meet the required standards, making it easier for head teachers to tackle underperformance.

[Damian Hinds]

As my hon. Friend says, far the most important factor in the quality of teaching is the presence of our dedicated teachers. Will he consider widening access to taster sessions for potential teachers, both to attract more good people to the profession and to give more people a chance to decide whether it is really for them before committing themselves to a BEd or a PGCE?

[Mr Gibb]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point. The Teaching Agency’s new school experience programme for people who are considering teaching maths, physics, chemistry or a modern language at secondary level provides precisely the opportunities to which he refers. It gives participants an opportunity to observe teaching and pastoral work, and to talk to teachers about day-to-day school life. More than 800 people have benefited from the programme so far, and many more placements are planned for the future.