Child Poverty Commission (Annual Report)
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I, in collaboration with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, wish to inform the House of the publication of the annual report by the Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission “State of the Nation: social mobility and child poverty in Great Britain”.
The report sets out the views of the Commission on the progress made toward the goals of improving social mobility and reducing child poverty in the United Kingdom. It also includes a description of the measures that have been taken by the devolved Administrations in Scotland and Wales.
The Government welcome the report and the Commission’s contribution to these important issues. We will consider their recommendations and our response in due course.
The report will be laid in Parliament and published later today. The report will be available at www.Gov.uk/SMCPC.
Al-Madinah Free School
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
Each Urgent Question requires a Government Minister to give a response on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab)
(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Education to make a statement on the failings of the Al-Madinah free school revealed in the Ofsted inspection report.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I welcome this opportunity to make a statement on the Al-Madinah free school, and I apologise to the House for the absence of the Secretary of State, who is abroad. We have received the letter that the hon. Gentleman sent to the Secretary of State on 15 October, raising issues relating to that school, and Lord Nash and I will respond to it shortly.
The Al-Madinah free school serves children and young people between the ages of 4 and 16 in the Derby city community, and it has been open for just a year. After a steady start by the school we became aware of potential breaches of the conditions in its funding agreement late this summer, and at the end of July we began a wide-ranging investigation into the financial management and governance of the school. We investigated whether it was delivering on its commitment to be inclusive, and we investigated allegations about the imposition of a dress requirement on female members of staff. Our investigations did indeed find significant and numerous breaches of the conditions in the school’s funding agreement, and our concerns were such that we requested Ofsted to bring forward its planned inspection.
The Ofsted report is published this morning. It found that the school is dysfunctional, and inadequate across every category of inspection: achievement of pupils; quality of teaching; behaviour and safety of pupils; and leadership and management. We were already taking decisive action before we received the Ofsted report. Lord Nash wrote to the chair of the trust on 8 October, following the previous investigations, and set out all the requirements for the trust to take swift and decisive actions to deal with the serious concerns. We have been clear with the trust that failure to do so promptly will result in the school’s funding being terminated. We have also been clear that the trust must address all the breaches identified. We will not let any school, whether a free school, an academy, or a local authority school, languish in failure. The Ofsted report confirms that we are taking the right actions. We are not prepared to allow a school to fail its parents, its children and its community. We said we would take swift action in these cases, and that is exactly what we are doing.
Tristram Hunt
Today’s Ofsted report exposes the fact that the Government’s free school programme has become a dangerous free for all, an out-of-control, ideological experiment that has closed a school, leaving 400 children losing an entire week of learning. It is a devastating blow to the Education Secretary’s flagship policy, and reveals that pupils have been failed on every possible measure. Parents will want to know why the Education Secretary has allowed that to happen.
Contrary to what the Minister said, in a pre-registration report in July 2012, Ofsted deemed the school to be failing to meet basic child protection standards, even before it was opened. Why did Ministers not act on those concerns before signing a funding agreement for the school? Why have Ministers allowed a school to be run by large numbers of unqualified staff? Why have Ministers sanctioned “dangerous levels” of safety and behaviour, and why have they allowed children with special educational needs to be left to struggle? In a city where every child needs to be supported and educated to the highest possible level, the Education Secretary has sacrificed learning for ideology. It is not just Al-Madinah school that is dysfunctional; it is the Education Secretary’s free schools policy.
Mr Laws
The support of the Labour party for free schools did not last long, did it? I do not know how the hon. Gentleman has the nerve to come to the House. On Sunday he was going around television studios and saying that Labour was shifting its position on free schools. He said:
“We will keep those free schools going”.
Within the same set of Department for Education press cuttings in which he announced he was shifting his position in favour of free schools, we find a headline stating that Labour now plans to rein in free schools. It is complete and utter incoherence from the hon. Gentleman, and he should be ashamed.
Let me respond in detail to every single serious point the hon. Gentleman made—it will not take very long—and go back over what has happened in Al-Madinah school and the scrutiny to which it has been subjected. The school opened in September 2012. It had a pre-registration Ofsted report, as all such schools do—such a report is not sensational. In the report, Ofsted set down a number of requirements that it wanted met before the school opened. In advance of the school opening, the trust went through the requirements with the lead contact in the Department for Education. It produced certificates to show that it had done the safeguarding and first aid training, and a certificate—[Interruption.] The shadow Secretary of State ought to listen to this. The school produced a certificate authorised by the director of planning and transportation at Derby city council saying that the building was fit for occupation. After that, the Department sent an adviser to the school two months after it opened, who saw the good progress that the school was making at that stage.
In July 2013, we became aware of concerns about equalities and management issues at the school and acted immediately on that. We established an Education Funding Agency financial investigation into the school and sent our advisers to it. We asked Ofsted to bring forward its inspection, which has now taken place. Prior to receiving that inspection, the Under-Secretary of State, Lord Nash, wrote to the school setting out precisely the actions that it will take, and making it clear that its funding will not continue unless it addresses those things.
If the shadow Secretary of State is so supportive of free schools, why does he not have the responsibility to put the failure of the school into context? Seventy-five per cent. of the free schools that have opened have been rated good or outstanding by Ofsted. That is a higher proportion than the proportion of local authority schools. We did not hear that from the hon. Gentleman.
On complacency, which I believe is the allegation the hon. Gentleman makes, may I remind him of the record of the Labour Government whom he defends? At the end of their period in office, 8% of schools in this country —more than 1,500—were rated as inadequate, many had been so for years, with no action. By focusing on one school in which the Government are taking action, the hon. Gentleman is failing schools in this country, including ones that failed under the Labour Government, when little action was taken.
People listening to these exchanges and to the hon. Gentleman, and reflecting on what he said on Sunday and how he has stood on his head today, will see nothing other than total and utter opportunism and shambles from Labour’s education policy.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The leaked Ofsted report states that
“the governors have failed the parents of this community who have placed their trust in them.”
Will Ministers intervene to replace the current board of governors with an interim executive board? Looking to the future, what steps will the Minister take to ensure that the training available to the governors of free schools properly equips them for that important role?
Mr Laws
I can assure the hon. Gentleman—the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education—that Lord Nash and I are taking decisive action to ensure that the school improves its leadership and governance. The hon. Gentleman will understand why I cannot go into all the details of that, although the clear requirements are set out in the letter Lord Nash wrote to the school on 8 October, which has been published.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
The leaked report has rung an alarm bell. Will the right hon. Gentleman learn the lessons from it, because what begins as a good idea—having unqualified and sometimes untrained teachers in an establishment—can, in some cases, be very dangerous and damaging? May we have an explicit word from him this morning to say that, in this country, no establishment and no school—this should not even happen in home schooling—should treat girls in a subservient way and differently from boys?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman, the former Chair of the Select Committee, is absolutely right: different treatment for boys and girls is unacceptable. We have made that absolutely clear and required the school to change those practices immediately, for both pupils and teaching staff. He is a reasonable man and will know that it is sensible and responsible to draw the right conclusions from one school, and balance them against the success of many free schools. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) wanted to praise and associate himself with that success on Sunday and withdrew his support by Tuesday.
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey and Old Southwark) (LD)
I declare an interest as chair of governors of St James’ Church of England primary school in Bermondsey and as a trustee of Bacon’s college in Rotherhithe. Having seen the report that states clearly four findings of inadequacy, nine significant failings and only three strengths, will the Minister tell us the timetable for Al-Madinah school, if it is to continue, to be found good, satisfactory or excellent? What is the process for new schools on how soon inspections can happen? What is the trigger for parents and concerned parties in any school to start a process of additional inspection, and what is the speed at which that can be done?
Mr Laws
I assure my right hon. Friend that we are following a two-pronged strategy to deal with these concerns. The Minister with responsibility for free schools, Lord Nash, set out clearly, in a letter on 8 October to the chair of governors, a series of actions that are expected to be taken by the free school in swift order—within this calendar month. We will report back to the House and others on those actions, including the issues identified by Ofsted, to ensure that they have been taken and dealt with. In addition, given the highly critical nature of the report, Ofsted will follow up to ensure improvements are rapid. We will consider, very swiftly indeed, whether the governing body and the existing leadership have the capacity to make those improvements.
Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)
The Minister will know that the majority of children who attend the school are of the Muslim faith: this is a faith school that is also a free school. Earlier this year, on 15 March, the Secretary of State opened the first Hindu free school that is a faith school in my constituency, which I applaud and welcome. Will he confirm that nothing he has said today will affect the Government’s policy if a faith school wishes to be a free school?
Mr Laws
I assure the right hon. Gentleman that we will still allow faith schools to be free schools. We must not lose sight of the fact that some of the best schools are faith schools. That includes Muslim schools—both free and non-free schools—some of which have secured impressive levels of attainment and progress.
Mr Rob Wilson (Reading East) (Con)
My right hon. Friend will be aware of the mess that the previous Government made of education, but he may not be aware that the chair of the education trust and chair of governors at Al-Madinah free school is a member of, and fundraiser for, the Labour party and recently stood as a candidate in the Derby city council elections. Does the Minister think the mess the school is in could have anything to do with a local leadership that seems to come directly from the national Labour party?
Mr Laws
What I can compare favourably is the swift action that this Government take when we find a school that is failing. That contrasts with the previous Labour Government, who had more than 1,500 schools categorised as inadequate. I do not remember any occasion where the same scrutiny was given to those schools.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
Surely this situation demonstrates the need for those working with children to be properly trained and qualified. Will the Minister change course, follow our lead and require all teachers to be qualified?
Mr Laws
We want to ensure that teachers in schools have good qualifications and the capacity to teach. The hon. Lady will know, however, that there are plenty of teachers who may not have formal qualifications but who still do a superb job. We are ensuring, through the Ofsted inspection process, that every single teacher has the capability to teach. All classes are assessed for quality, and that is the right way to ensure a backstop of high standards.
Mr James Clappison (Hertsmere) (Con)
There are 170 free schools across the country and plans for more, including one serving my constituency. Will the Minister assure me that, notwithstanding this isolated case, the Government’s plans for these schools will go ahead so that they can continue raising standards?
Mr Laws
I can give my hon. Friend that assurance. The speed with which the shadow Secretary of State has stood on his head regarding Labour policy on free schools will unnerve many free schools across the country and undermine the confidence of the many free schools that are doing a fantastic and innovative job. I just draw attention to the fact that the proportion of free schools that are outstanding and good is higher than in the rest of the school population, even though many of them have only been in existence for two years.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
The Minister reports that his Department had concerns about this school. Which other free schools does his Department have concerns about?
Mr Julian Brazier (Canterbury) (Con)
Is it not right that the Government should take action, whether a free school or a Government-run school is having problems, and is it not wrong to leap on one single instance of a problem, because it is being tackled, and blame the other 169 schools, too?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman is exactly right. When we consider how to intervene in failing schools, we need to consider the challenge of intervening just as swiftly as we are in this school in the hundreds of other schools across the country that are performing inadequately. The hard reality is that under the last Government and some previous Governments, too many inadequate schools across the country were able to sustain inadequate performance for long periods. The challenge is to ensure that the focus on this school is also on all those other maintained schools, which the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central seems far less attracted to focusing on.
Mrs Mary Glindon (North Tyneside) (Lab)
The local authority in this case has neither the power nor the capacity to help, so who will help the school to improve and take the action the Minister is requiring it to take?
Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)
Is the Minister as surprised as I am that, interestingly, whereas the hon. Member for Derby North (Chris Williamson), who has been vociferous in the national and local press about this school, because he is totally against free schools, wants it brought within the remit of the local authority, the chairman of governors, who wanted to be a Labour councillor, was quite happy with it? Labour’s policy is all over the place. I thought that the hon. Gentleman was at odds with the shadow Secretary of State, but clearly he is not.
Mr Speaker
Order. First, the question was too long; secondly, the Minister has absolutely no responsibility for the attendance or stance of absent or present Members. Perhaps we can deal holistically with the issue, rather than with the minutiae.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
The Minister spoke about the safeguards in place to prevent this sort of thing from happening, but his comments were unconvincing given that it has happened and children are suffering as a result. Will he now acknowledge that the Secretary of State in Whitehall cannot possibly provide the level of scrutiny, oversight or support that schools need and which the local community, through the local authority, is much better placed to provide?
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
The failing of any school is regrettable, be it a free school or non-free school, but does the Minister accept that we need to see it in the context of the success of the policy? Can he reassure me that strong action will be taken and that the model that has worked successfully elsewhere will also be used in this case?
Dr Alan Whitehead (Southampton, Test) (Lab)
The Minister says he wants to ensure that teachers are qualified and supervised, but last year his Department announced that teachers in free schools and academies did not need to be qualified to be appointed and never did. As a result, Al-Madinah school appointed virtually all its teachers on an unqualified basis. Does he think that is any cause for reflection on the announcement he made last year about unqualified teachers being acceptable?
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I salute the Government’s swift action on this matter. Does the Minister agree that it also reinforces the argument that we need strong and effective leadership in schools, especially through school governance?
Mr Laws
I certainly do. If Members, particularly on the Opposition Benches, reflect more carefully on this issue, they will see that one of the lessons is that the speed with which we have acted on the concerns expressed should be reflected in the speed with which we see action in all schools that are weak.
Mr Ian Liddell-Grainger (Bridgwater and West Somerset) (Con)
Will the Minister ensure that one sector of these children—children with special learning difficulties—is looked after more than others? They are the ones who suffer most in any school that this happens to. Will he ensure through his office that those children get adequate cover while this period of uncertainty continues?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to put the spotlight on the young people in the school, whose concerns need to be top of our list of priorities. We will ensure that those with special needs—indeed, all the pupils—are properly catered for through this period, which is one reason why Lord Nash has acted so swiftly to ensure that the school resolves the outstanding problems.
George Freeman (Mid Norfolk) (Con)
The free school revolution has triggered a renaissance of educational hope and lit a thousand candles around the country, with people investing and taking an interest in new education. May I welcome the speed with which those on the Front Bench have acted on this school, but also urge the Minister and the team not in any way to allow the intellectual and political gymnastics of Opposition Front Benchers—who have opposed progressive reforms in education for years and have now seized on one case of failure—to slow down these important reforms, which are giving hope to millions?
Mr Laws
I can assure my hon. Friend that we are not impressed or distracted by the gymnastics we have seen over the last week or by the desperate attempt by the shadow Education Secretary to resolve his differences with his own Schools Minister, who has a totally different view about free schools. We will remain focused on improving this school—and, indeed, all schools across the country that need improvement.
Andrew Bridgen (North West Leicestershire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that this urgent question demonstrates the Opposition’s political dogma on education? They are using one failing free school to criticise all free schools. Given that the comprehensive school that I attended is now sadly in special measures, does he not think it is telling that the Labour party is not asking questions—
Mr Peter Bone (Wellingborough) (Con)
I thank the shadow Education Secretary for asking this urgent question on such an important issue. We should be focusing on this particular school, not making party political points, although, interestingly, more Government Members are interested in this subject than Opposition Members. Can the Minister confirm that, if necessary, he has the power to close the school down if it cannot be reformed?
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
Parents will have pressed for the Al-Madinah free school to be established because they felt that the school would provide a suitable education for their children. I am reassured by the actions already taken, but will the Minister also ensure that pre-applications are thoroughly scrutinised?
Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con)
The OECD report published last week places Britain near the bottom of the international literacy and numeracy league tables. Does that not make the case for continued innovation in education? Will the Minister ensure that this poor example does not undermine the excellent and innovative free schools programme?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes a telling point about the educational challenges for this country and about the need to focus on educational failure from wherever it comes. It speaks volumes about the Labour party that it should choose to have an urgent question on this one individual school while across the country there are hundreds of other schools facing similar challenges in which it seems to have no equivalent interest.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, despite the failings of this particular school, free schools, university technical schools and the pupil premium are transforming education in our country and that we should not use the failure of one school to become the enemy of choice for parents who want to set up their own schools?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is exactly right. The Under-Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), will publish information showing the progress made across the country in last year’s exam results—progress that, thanks to our reforms and to Ofqual, we can be assured is real progress and not simply inflated progress.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What is actually happening for the children at this school to make sure that we look after them?
Mr Laws
What is happening is that Lord Nash is taking decisive action to address, one by one, all the deficiencies identified in the Ofsted report. He has already received detailed responses and assurances on many points from the free school, and we will make sure that we get assurances on all those issues. We will then make a judgment about whether the people running the school are fit to continue running it in the future.
Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that actions taken in respect of Al-Madinah school demonstrate that this Government are tough on low standards wherever they occur—whether it be in free schools, local authority schools or academy schools?
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
I welcome the action taken in respect of this school and the fact that the majority of the 170 free schools are outperforming local authority schools. Does the Minister agree that one bad apple does not spoil the barrel, and has he learned anything about Labour’s policy on free schools?
Mr Laws
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. It is interesting that the shadow Secretary of State who speaks for the Opposition on these matters has not concluded that the Labour party’s last academies programme was deficient because some of those academies have failed. There is a basic lack of logic in Labour’s position and an ideological resistance to innovation in the school system.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Whether it be at the Al-Madinah school or any other school, most of my constituents would take the view that it is completely inappropriate for any school uniform policy to include a requirement for schoolgirls to wear the full-face Islamic veil. Is that the policy of Her Majesty’s Government, or is it up to each school to decide?
Secondary Schools (Accountability)
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
With permission, Mr Speaker, I would like to make a statement on the future of secondary school accountability, following our recent consultation. May I first welcome the new shadow Secretary of State for Education and express our best wishes to his predecessor, the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), with whom we always had a very constructive relationship?
Until now, secondary schools have been judged by the proportion of their pupils who are awarded five GCSEs at grade C or better, including in English and maths. Schools currently improve their league table position if pupils move over the C/D borderline. That gives schools a huge incentive to focus excessively on the small number of pupils around the five Cs borderline. In our view, that is unfair to pupils with the potential to move from E grades to D grades or from B grades to A grades. It is also, paradoxically, unfair to those on the C/D borderline because it leads schools to teach to the test. Ofqual, the Chairman of the Select Committee on Education and others have warned about those adverse incentives.
Indeed, all five of the maths organisations that responded to the consultation said that the current approach harmed the teaching of mathematics. The Association of Teachers of Mathematics said:
“Teaching to the test…results in superficial skills development which means that students are ill prepared for adult life”.
Furthermore, as Chris Paterson at CentreForum has shown, the current accountability framework discourages schools from focusing on the lowest-attaining pupils. In a recently published book, “The Tail”, the authors argue that the past 15 years have seen rises in average attainment in our schools, but not in the attainment of those at the bottom. International surveys such as the trends in international mathematics and science study confirm that position. We need a secondary school accountability system that gives more attention to pupils who are falling behind.
The current measure also permits many schools, particularly in affluent areas, to coast. Those schools find it easy to hit targets based only on five C grades. Although those schools may look successful, C grades are not a measure of success if pupils are actually capable of achieving far more. The accountability system must set challenging but fair expectations for every school, whatever its intake.
The five A* to C grades measure also encourages schools to offer a narrow curriculum. Mastery of just five subjects is not enough for most pupils at age 16. Furthermore, the use of equivalent qualifications means that some students have not been offered a rigorous academic curriculum, which would have served them well. Until this year, a school could offer English, maths and only one BTEC and still have the pupil count as having achieved five Cs or better.
We believe that the system can do much better than that, so we will require all schools to publish core information on their website in a standard format. From now on, there will be four key measures that must be published. The first is pupils’ progress across eight subjects, so a parent will see whether pupils at a school typically achieve one grade higher than expected or one grade lower. The second is the average grade that a pupil achieves in those same best eight subjects. That will show, for example, that pupils in a particular school average a high B grade or a low D grade in their GCSEs. The third is the percentage of pupils achieving a C grade in English and maths. The fourth is the proportion of pupils gaining the EBacc, which will continue in its current form. We will also look at developing a destination measure to show the percentage of pupils in any school who move on to further study or employment, including further training.
We are proposing an important change to how we measure underperformance, and to our floor targets. Rather than the five A* to C GCSEs threshold measure, we will use the new progress measure for the floor targets. That will be much fairer, because it will take into account a school’s intake. A pupil’s key stage 2 results, achieved at the end of primary school, will be used to set a reasonable expectation of what they should achieve at GCSE, and schools will get credit when pupils outperform those expectations. A child who gets an A when they were expected to get a B, or a D when they were expected to get an E, will effectively score points for their school. That approach will ensure that all pupils matter, and matter equally. It will be fairer for schools and fairer for pupils.
Coasting schools will no longer be let off the hook. Equally, head teachers will no longer feel penalised when they have actually performed well with a challenging intake. We must not deter the best head teachers and teachers from working in challenging schools.
Pupils’ progress and attainment will be assessed in eight subjects: English and maths, three further EBacc subjects and three other high-value qualifications. That final group can include further traditional academic subjects such as art, music and drama, and vocational subjects such as engineering and business. English and maths will be double-weighted to reflect their importance. That will encourage schools to offer all pupils a broad curriculum, but with a strong academic core.
We will define the new floor standard as progress half a grade lower than reasonable expectations. So if pupils at a school are expected to average a B in their eight subjects, the school will be below the floor if they average less than four Bs and four Cs. At present, there are 195 schools below the existing floor standard. Using existing figures, we estimate that about twice as many schools would be below the new floor standard. However, as schools will adjust their curriculum offer to the new framework, the actual number is likely to be significantly lower.
We also want to recognise schools in which pupils make exceptional progress. Therefore, a school in which pupils average a full grade above reasonable expectations will not be inspected by Ofsted the following year. This is the first time the accountability regime has offered schools a carrot as well as a stick. Schools have planned their current curriculum for years 10 and 11 on the basis of the existing accountability system, so for that reason, the new system will begin in 2016 for students currently in year 9. We will, however, allow schools to opt into the new system from 2015 if they wish.
The Government response to the consultation also describes how we will publish information we hold about secondary schools through a new data portal. That builds on our existing performance tables, and will allow all interested groups—governors, parents, academics and civil society more widely—to analyse aspects of school performance. Our full response to the consultation is available on the Department for Education’s website, and a copy will be placed in the Library of the House.
Through these changes, we are removing the perverse incentives for schools to act in a way that is not in the best interests of their pupils. More pupils will get the teaching they require and obtain the valuable qualifications they need. The proposals will have a major and positive effect on our education system, and we hope they will secure support from across the political spectrum.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for his kind words for the shadow Secretary of State and the former shadow Secretary of State, which he gave in his usual courteous way at the beginning of his statement. I also thank him for advance sight of the statement. Labour will study closely the details of the changes he proposes, and if it transpires that they will incentivise rich, broad and balanced curricula in our schools, we will welcome them. There are, however, some important tests that the changes must pass.
Anyone watching last week’s “Educating Yorkshire” will have seen the extraordinary efforts that teachers go to—sometimes including risking their health—to help pupils pass their GCSEs. It is sad that these days that is sometimes known in Government as “gaming the system”. How will the Minister ensure that the new arrangements will allow teachers to help pupils of all abilities to achieve their best, and can he be sure that they will not throw up their own new perverse incentives?
The Labour party, backed by the CBI, is committed to ensuring that all young people continue to study maths and English to 18, although so far the Government have failed to support Labour’s plan. Will the Minister think again about that? As the participation age rises to 18, and with challenges for us all in the OECD report, does he not want all young people to continue studying maths and English to 18? We also need more detail about how the changes will impact on technical and vocational education which, once again, seems to be a bit of an afterthought. He referred to progression post-16, but why are the Government watering down the important requirement on schools to ensure that young people are ready for the world of work, through the provision of work experience and independent careers advice and guidance?
The central problem with the announcement is that parents, pupils and teachers no longer trust the Government not to tinker. When it comes to accountability measures, the Government behave a little like the badgers, moving the goalposts halfway through the school year. Will the Minister guarantee that the proposal will not be subject to the mood swings of the Secretary of State and his infamous friend Dominic Cummings? Parents, pupils, teachers and head teachers are livid about the latest knee-jerk announcement via the press, when pupils are already preparing for exams and only days away from the deadline for exam entry, that only first entry into GCSE can be counted in the school accountability measure. If the badgers are moving the goalposts, Ministers are changing the rules in the middle of the match. Will the Minister promise to meet with heads to discuss their concerns about this change being implemented in such a way?
Will this change to the accountability system make any real difference to children if their schools are vulnerable to—I quote the Secretary of State’s special adviser— “disastrous teaching” and “fraudulent activity”? That is the view of Dominic Cummings, who says that it is inevitable, because of the lack of grip the Secretary of State has on his free schools policy, that some will fail for those reasons. That is what he said.
We are already seeing the fruit of that failure in the scandal at Al-Madinah school in Derby, which left 400 children without schooling for an entire week and whose approach to women staff and female students has caused such controversy. What will the right hon. Gentleman do to ensure that school accountability extends beyond today’s measure and includes ensuring that all taxpayer-funded schools have qualified teaching staff, are monitored for financial fraud, have proper child protection measures in place and are adhering to basic British values of tolerance and respect for all, regardless of gender, sexuality or religious belief?
Mr Laws
I think I welcome the shadow Minister’s response to our statement. By the end of it, it was difficult to know whether he was supporting the statement or not. We will come to that in a moment. I think I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s relatively cautious approach because, from him, I take that as a sign of support, whereas from other people it might qualify as anything other than that.
I hope the hon. Gentleman will accept that we have taken time to get this right. Nobody can accuse us of rushing into the proposals. After all, we announced a consultation in this area in February. We have taken a great deal of time to get our proposals right. We have listened very carefully, including to the Chairman of the Select Committee, to a lot of the mathematics, to organisations that made representations, and to hon. Members on both sides of the House. As a consequence, the Secretary of State and I have changed the proposals that we first made. We have moved away from a threshold measure to a greater extent than was originally planned, precisely because of the perverse incentive effects that the hon. Gentleman talked about, and we think we have now got the balance right between having a proper accountability system and ensuring that that system embeds the right incentives. By having a number of key measures, we will ensure that it is not possible to game one of those and ignore all the other things that matter.
The hon. Gentleman is right that we need to encourage young people who have not mastered maths and English at 16 to go on studying those subjects, and we have announced a new core maths qualification beyond the age of 16 to ensure that young people have the opportunity to do that. We have also, through our 16-to-19 accountability consultation, paid a great deal of attention to the incentives that educational institutions will have to keep young people on course after the age of 16 and to create the right incentives. The destination measure that I have talked about today will give all educational institutions an interest in the qualifications that young people secure not only at age 16, but beyond that.
On the issue of early entries for GCSEs, I do understand that this has been controversial, but the hon. Gentleman will understand that we must pay attention to the serious warnings that we have received from Ofsted and others about the scale of increase of early entry. This summer almost a quarter of maths entries—170,000 entries —were from young people who were not at the end of key stage 4 study. Ofsted said that it found no evidence that such approaches on their own served the best interests of students in the long term. Indeed, Sir Michael Wilshaw has said that he thinks early entry hurts the chances of some children, who are not able to go on to get the best grades that they are capable of.
On future uncertainty about these frameworks, we hope very much indeed that we will be able to secure support from across the House for the proposals that we have made today, and I take the hon. Gentleman’s comments as a modest step in that direction. However, in terms of getting certainty about the degree of cross-party co-operation, it would be helpful if he could clarify some of divisions that there are now on his own side about some of the key issues. For example, one of the measures that we have said we would publish is the EBacc, and we believe we should continue to do so. The former education spokesman for the Labour party opposed the EBacc and said that it was at best an irrelevance and in some cases distorted young people’s choices. The new spokesman for the Labour party said that he supports the English baccalaureate. We want to hear from the Opposition some clarity about Labour’s position on these issues; otherwise, that will be a source of confusion.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
This announcement is extremely welcome, as the best eight measure will be an educational breakthrough in improving the accountability of secondary schools by, as the Minister rightly said, ensuring a focus on improving the education of the lowest-achieving, as well as stretching those at the top. It is to the credit of the Secretary of State and the Minister for Schools that they have listened to the submissions, that they have been prepared to take their time and that they have got this right. How will the floor target work? It is rightly based on progression, but how will it ensure that progression is fairly measured between those who serve the more able and typically prosperous parts of the population and those in the most deprived areas?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee for his kind comments about the proposals we have announced today. I am happy to pay tribute to him for the role he has played in ensuring the improvement of the proposals between the original announcement and consultation in February and today, when the final proposals were made. He is right that the new progress measure will ensure that the attention and focus is not only, as it was in the past, on the schools with the lowest levels of attainment, but on schools that appear to have high levels of attainment but where levels of progress are extremely low. Schools have been able to coast over the past decade because their overall levels of attainment look all right, when they have actually been failing young people by not getting much better results from them.
Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)
This is probably the best statement I have heard from a Minister since 2010, when the Government were formed. It is not all perfect, but the Government have listened and have modified the proposals. They should be congratulated on that. If they listened to last week’s debate on adult literacy and numeracy, will they take the lesson that the one area in which we still underachieve is the failure of at least 25% of our young people coming through education to get almost any qualification at 16? That is where the concentration must be and we need action soon.
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, the former Chair of the Select Committee, for his kind comments. He is absolutely right that one of the big challenges we must address in education is the very large number of young people who are not getting through GCSEs with decent qualifications in English and maths. Shockingly, at the moment the overwhelming majority of those young people continue to fail beyond the age of 16. Many do not even attempt to retake those subjects to get that basic level of literacy and numeracy, and we must address that.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement. It is clear that the Government are absolutely committed to tackling underachievement among children from poorer backgrounds. Will he undertake not to lose sight of the importance of English as an additional language as a factor in educational attainment? Will he look at the subject in the round when going forward with these welcome education reforms?
Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)
Many schools in and around Sheffield no longer offer three separate science subjects at GCSE, which is blocking young people from being able to go on to careers in engineering and other related subjects. Given the changes that have been announced, how does the Minister see things developing? In particular, will he support the development of separate sciences so that young people go into such areas, where we have skills shortages?
Mr Laws
The hon. Lady makes a good point. Sadly, over the past decade or so there was a movement by students away from taking serious single-science subjects towards broader subjects that sometimes had an unrealistic equivalence. I am pleased to say that since the changes made by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State in that area, we have seen a big increase in students taking some of those subjects at GCSE and A-level. We need to ensure that the number goes up even further in the future.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
What discussions has the Minister had with the private sector? Is there not a danger that in moving to a progress measure we are moving from absolute standards to relative standards because we are taking account of where people come from as opposed to where they are? Parents want a measure of how good a school is now and the rigid academic standards it is achieving, and nothing else.
Mr Laws
We have had a broad welcome for the proposals in the consultation and the statement, including from many employer organisations, but my hon. Friend is right to highlight that, ultimately, results and attainment are crucial to any young person doing well in future. I believe that, through the best eight measure—an average we will publish as part of the new accountability framework —we will send out the clearest signal ever about how a school is performing in a large range of subjects and for every single student in the school. I believe that that will improve the focus on attainment in every school in the country.
Mr David Lammy (Tottenham) (Lab)
I congratulate the Minister on his announcement. I particularly welcome the destinations measure, which I argued for as a Minister —I was not successful in persuading the Department to do it. How will it affect schools that go up to age 16, as opposed to schools that go up to age 18, which often place a greater emphasis on universities, including Russell group universities?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his comments. We would expect such a measure to apply both to schools that go up to age 16 and to those that go up to age 18. Looking at what happens to people afterwards is relevant in giving both a powerful incentive. Clearly, the pathway in each situation would, for many students, be slightly different, but we believe that taking an interest in what students go on to do beyond age 16 makes sense in giving a powerful incentive to the many schools in the country that go up to age 16.
Tim Farron (Westmorland and Lonsdale) (LD)
I very much welcome the proposals on increasing the reward for schools that add attainment for all pupils, irrespective of their backgrounds, and the proposals on adding value and support for schools that seek to boost attainment for all pupils, and not just those on the key dividing lines between specific grade boundaries. I am also happy to hear the Minister’s reference to having more carrots than sticks. In that sense, could we offer more carrots than sticks to the teaching profession with reference to Ofsted? Few Ofsted inspectors are currently teachers. Could Ofsted become more supportive and developmental rather than, say, threatening and limiting?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his comments. He is right that we need to guarantee confidence in the schools system about the job Ofsted does. I believe that, on the whole, it does an excellent job. He will be interested to know that, since the new chief inspector took over at Ofsted a couple of years ago, he has very significantly increased not only the number of former head teachers who work for it, but the number of existing senior school staff who act as Ofsted inspectors. I would be happy to write to my hon. Friend to update him on that information, because there has been a radical change in a short period.
Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)
I wish the Minister well in developing his destination measures, particularly on employment. If he wants to know how schools can prepare, I invite him to come to Birmingham to see how the Birmingham baccalaureate brings the world of work and schools together. That might give him a pathway to copy elsewhere.
Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)
Following that same point, in warmly welcoming the Minister’s statement, I urge him to accelerate the inclusion of a destination measure as an assessment criterion. What really matters is how a school prepares its pupils to succeed either in further education or in finding a job.
Mr Laws
I agree with my hon. Friend that the destination measure is extremely important. I assure him that we will act swiftly to seek to introduce the measure. Getting the data to the standard at which they are accurate and useful, which is crucial because we want an accountability measure that is taken seriously by schools, is important as the first step. However, as soon as we do it, we will move towards publishing the measure.
Toby Perkins (Chesterfield) (Lab)
Brookfield school in Chesterfield recently wrote to all parents to let them know that year 11 pupils whom the school believes might not get a C will not do maths until May or June, whereas previously they would have done it in November. Alongside schools accountability, is the Minister concerned that one impact could be that children on the borderline might not have the same chance that children higher up have, because the children who are higher up have the chance to do it in November and do it again in May if they are not happy with their original result? Is there a danger that schools will change the way in which they operate to the disadvantage of some pupils?
Mr Laws
We were concerned by what was happening in increasing numbers in some schools before the announcement was made. I draw the hon. Gentleman’s attention back to the massive expansion in the last couple of years in the number of students doing multiple GSCE entries—170,000 in summer 2013. Almost a quarter of maths entries were multiple entries from students who had not reached the end of key stage 4. Several bodies have expressed concern that some of the youngsters might get a C when they could go on to get a B, an A or an A*, and they are potentially being let down. It also means that teaching in those subjects ends at a much earlier stage than it should, with a year only of preparation in the subject rather than the full two years. It is crucial that we have a school system that acts in the best interests of the students, not simply of the schools.
Nick de Bois (Enfield North) (Con)
Employers will tell the Minister that it did not need an OECD report to show that England has—shockingly—some of the least literate students, because they only have to look at job applications to see that. Will he ensure that his system will have widespread effect, especially on literacy and numeracy, as opposed to focusing on a few?
Mr Laws
I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. The new system will reduce the amount of gaming behaviour across the C/D borderline and the amount of teaching for the test, which often distorts our appreciation of educational standards, and all of the changes go hand in glove with the further changes to GCSEs that were announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State earlier this year, which will try to ensure that GSCEs in English, maths and other subjects are fit for purpose and will ensure that young people in this country are as well prepared as those in other top education countries.
Julie Hilling (Bolton West) (Lab)
The Minister’s announcement on early entry—made to the media, it has to be said, not to the House—has created huge anger and great disruption to pupils and schools in my constituency. Did he talk to head teachers about why they do early entry, and will he commit to giving longer notice periods and to stop announcing changes that have immediate detrimental effects on pupils in the middle of their courses and exam preparation?
Mr Laws
I do not think we can be accused of leaping too rapidly to conclusions when we have just completed an eight-month consultation process on the changes that we are discussing today. It would be negligent of us to stand back and ignore the recommendations being made by Ofsted and others, and the dramatic figures that we have seen in the past year or so, which suggest that a vast amount of money is being sunk into exam fees rather than into teaching—behaviour that is not potentially in the best interests of some of the most disadvantaged youngsters. We have spoken to many head teachers and head teachers’ bodies about this. The timing has been controversial, but many head teachers have told us that there were problems and abuses in this area and that these changes are sensible,
Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)
The Minister visited Hexham schools this summer, for which I am grateful. He will know that they are outstanding and that they will welcome these accountability reforms, including the destination measures that he outlined. Could he give the House a little more explanation of how, through over-achievement, a school can avoid the next year’s Ofsted inspection?
Mr Laws
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for arranging the visit to his constituency some months ago. I very much enjoyed visiting a couple of schools in his part of the country. Those schools that achieve a particularly high level of progress—one grade more than expected—will have that exemption from Ofsted inspection, and that will send out a clear signal to those schools that we are rewarding the extraordinary progress that they are making.
Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)
I am sure the Minister is an avid reader of ConservativeHome, so he will have seen the blog post by the hon. Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) in August in which he talked about
“a new social divide in subject choices.”
He said that pupils from state schools, in particular pupils on free school meals, often went for the softer options. Will the Minister confirm what I think he said in his statement: that arts and vocational subjects are considered high value, and that performance and attainment in those subjects will be rewarded?
Mr Laws
Yes, I certainly can. In the best eight measure there will be three spaces reserved for subjects that can include arts, music, and vocational and other subjects. One of the great benefits of today’s announcement is that there will not be the pressure on schools, which was there in the past, to focus only on five GCSE subjects. For many students that created far too narrow a curriculum at the age of 16.
Alun Cairns (Vale of Glamorgan) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s statement, which will help parents to make an informed judgment when exercising choice for their children’s education. A great deal of emphasis has been placed on the progress from the outcomes of key stage 2 to expectations at key stage 3. What consideration has he given to consistency across different educational institutions?
Mr Laws
We want to see consistency right across educational institutions. The changes we have announced today will create much better consistency in accountability measures, and will not focus only on those institutions with lower attainment and lower prior achievement. This will be a fairer way of judging every single educational institution in the country.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
The issue of multiple exam entries—in particular in maths—has been raised with me by a number of constituents. In September, pupils were told that they would be entered for an exam in November. A few days later, as a result of the Government’s announcement, schools had to make the decision that that would not be right because of the impact it would have on league tables. Would it not be better to consider the impact on students—given the very high numbers involved, which the Minister has mentioned a couple of times—rather than timing the announcement for party conference season?
Mr Laws
This announcement was not timed for the party conference season; it was timed on the basis of the evidence available to us. If schools believe that young people should be entered in November, they are perfectly at liberty to do that—we have done nothing to stop them. Indeed, if they are confident that students will be able to secure their best grades at that time, they should put the students in for the exam. If, however, the students will achieve only a C grade when they could have achieved a B or an A later, schools should think twice.
Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
I warmly welcome the Minister’s statement. As the father of three children in a state school, I have always been frustrated by the smoke and mirrors used by some state schools. Does the Minister agree with exposing coasting schools, rather than rewarding them like the previous Labour Government did?
Mr Laws
This information will expose coasting schools. It will also expose any school that has been focusing its curriculum offer in a narrow way and not delivering the breadth that young people need. The data based on the new accountability measures will shine an interesting light both on schools that are perhaps not as good as they thought they were, and on schools that looked like they were at the bottom of the table but are actually achieving good results given the prior attainment of their students.
Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)
The Public Accounts Committee has been calling for greater financial accountability of schools and it is not clear from the Minister’s statement whether the new data portal will include that, or how open the data will be. Will he come to Shoreditch and allow some of our tech businesses to work with him and the Department on that data so that we have a telephone app that tells parents about the quality of the schools they are choosing?
Mr Speaker
I am grateful for the sedentary chuntering. It has to be said that the place the hon. Lady has in mind is nowhere near Birmingham, but I am sure that the Minister, who is a man of prodigious brainpower, will be fully conscious of that fact.
Sir Bob Russell (Colchester) (LD)
As a former pupil of St Helena secondary modern school for boys, I thank the Minister for taking the first step in 50 years to address the educational imbalance between academic and non-academic subjects. The Minister mentioned vocational subjects, one of which was engineering, but he was silent on building trade skills and motor mechanic skills. Will he give an assurance that they will form part of the vocational subjects, and with the holistic approach of “schools for life”, does he agree that first aid should be part of the curriculum?
Mr Laws
I welcome my hon. Friend’s welcome for these announcements, but I fear that on the issue of first aid, I will be unable to give him a different answer from the one given on previous occasions by the Secretary of State. On my hon. Friend’s wider point, it is important for all serious, high-value vocational qualifications to be accessible through this route. He will know that we have taken a close look at the whole suite of vocational qualifications to make sure that there are serious equivalents because of some of the problems that arose under the last Government. If he is concerned about particular qualifications, he should write to me and I will respond in detail.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
I am honoured to be mentioned by my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). I absolutely welcome the progress measure, but on its detail, will the key stage floor target be taken at the end of year 6 or the beginning of year 7, given the overwhelming evidence and research showing that achievement at key stage 2 drops over the summer before they arrive at secondary school?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend raises a very good point. We will use the end of key stage 2 data. As an expert on these matters, he may want to probe annexe B of our consultation response, which sets out in some detail how this aspect will work. We will also make sure that proper credibility pertains to all the key stage 2 data. Because it will be used to measure secondary schools’ achievement, it is even more important than it is now for this data to be fully credible and properly stress-tested.
Jackie Doyle-Price (Thurrock) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at a time of declining social mobility, it is important to tackle coasting schools to make sure that they do not fail the brightest pupils from the most modest backgrounds and that all schools have a responsibility to have a programme for talented children, which should not be just an optional extra?
Mr Laws
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. One of the deficiencies of the existing accountability regime is that it is too easy for schools in comfortable catchment areas to coast and to fail to deliver for many of their pupils. They are not in the spotlight at present; they will be in the future.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Of all this Government’s school reforms, is this perhaps the most significant in terms of its breadth of impact right across education, ensuring that teachers’ efforts on behalf of all pupils are fully recognised? Does the Minister anticipate a warm welcome from teachers, who will be able to do what they entered this noble profession to do: to deliver a broad education free from the artificial constraints of the C/D borderline?
Mr Laws
I agree with my hon. Friend. I believe that today’s announcement has so far been warmly welcomed by teachers’ organisations and others. It will allow a good measure of accountability—an intelligent accountability that drives the right results and the right behaviours at all schools.
Christopher Pincher (Tamworth) (Con)
I welcome the statement. Pursuant to the point about key stage 2 raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore), may we use this opportunity to encourage greater integration between secondary and primary schools? All too many students go to secondary school at the age of 11 with a reading age of 7, and many of them are condemned to fail at GCSE the moment they walk through the door of their secondary school. We need to see greater linkage between secondaries and primaries, so that those secondaries are able to identify potential challenges in their future cohorts as early as possible.
Mr Laws
I agree with my hon. Friend, who makes an extremely important point. He will know that as part of our proposals on primary accountability, we are significantly increasing the bar for what success looks like at the end of primary school. We are doing that because pupils at the end of primary school who achieve only the level of attainment set as a measure of achievement by the previous Government overwhelmingly go on to fail even the existing five good GCSE measure. We cannot possibly allow a level of success at the end of primary school that prepares students for failure rather than success in secondary school.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Effective implementation is likely to require accountability to run both ways. Head teachers who are inspired by this and other measures to tackle educational underachievement have the right to know that the Department for Education, the Education Funding Agency and Ofsted are there to help them, and that their interactions with those agencies will be courteous, open and effective. Will the Minister do his part, in respect of accountability, to ensure that those agencies support the head teachers who are in the front line when it comes to making these changes happen?
Mr Laws
I will certainly do that. Head teachers want to feel that they are supported by all parts of the education system, including our Department, and they want an accountability system which they see as fair and which drives the right incentives. I believe that what I have announced today will give them that.
Dr Thérèse Coffey (Suffolk Coastal) (Con)
I welcome the statement, and particularly the fact that English and maths will be given double weighting in the new table. I am sure that that will lead to a greater quality, if not quantity, of teaching. Will my right hon. Friend consider publishing draft data so that parents can have the necessary information before attending open evenings and choosing secondary schools for their offspring?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is right to draw attention to the double weighting of English and maths, which we think sends a clear signal about the crucial role of those subjects. We will do what we can through the data portal to give parents as much information as possible about the issues, as soon as possible. We will also ensure that the key measures are published on the website of every single school so that parents can see what they often cannot see at present, namely a consistent comparison of the key performance indicators of all schools.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Any system of school or pupil assessment which results in all pupils’ being pushed to do the very best that they can must be a good thing, but can the Minister explain to parents in Kettering—without using any departmental jargon—at what stage children’s predicted GCSE results will be established, and how that measure of progress, whether it be one grade above or one grade below, will be assessed and audited?
Mr Laws
Yes, I can. I refer the hon. Gentleman to annexe B, which we published today and which will provide him with a fair amount of detail about how we will calculate the measure. I hope that that reassures him, but I shall be happy to meet him if he wants to discuss the matter further.
Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)
My constituents cannot wait for the Secretary of State’s forthcoming visit to see the good progress that schools have made on GCSE results—particularly St Anne’s school, where there has been a remarkable 28% improvement. I especially welcome the new progress measures that the Minister has announced, and I commend his statement for its fairness. Broomfield school, which is just down the road from St Anne’s and of which I am a governor, has come out of special measures and is making good progress, but in terms of GCSE results it has to deal with a very challenging intake, not least the pupils who leave key stage 2 lacking basic numeracy and literacy skills.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
I, too, welcome the statement. I am particularly pleased to be able to add my welcome and support to those of many employment organisations. I especially welcome the focus on destination measures: true outcomes of educational attainment. Can the Minister shed more light on that? Will the destinations include apprenticeships and higher apprenticeships, and are there lessons to be learnt from other countries for the purpose of this important measure?
Mr Laws
Obviously we will be considering educational destinations, apprenticeships, and employment destinations with training. We need to ensure that we can collect all the information properly so that when schools receive it on their websites they recognise it, regard it as fair, and regard the Government as having captured accurately data which currently we do not possess in a single place, but believe that we can bring together.
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is my right hon. Friend aware that under the leadership of Helena Mills, Burnt Mill academy in Harlow has this year achieved 76% A to C grades in maths and English at GCSE, compared with a figure of just 27% a few years ago, by carrying out many of the measures that he set out and having a relentless focus on maths and English? Will he look at such schools to see examples of good practice and how the new accountability system works?
School Governors and School Improvement
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 7 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Main.
I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Neil Carmichael) on securing a debate on this very important topic; on the work that he has done in founding and chairing the all-party group on education governance and leadership; and, of course, on the contribution that he and his hon. Friend, the hon. Member for Beverley and Holderness (Mr Stuart), who is the Chairman of the Education Committee, have made to the Select Committee’s report on this issue, which came out earlier this year and which we, as a Department, have looked at very closely indeed.
Our Department believes that school governance has a vital role to play in driving up school standards and pupil performance, and—as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud himself mentioned—we recognise the dedication of the hundreds of thousands of volunteers who serve as school governors and who are passionate about supporting and improving their schools. The success of our education system relies upon the expertise and hard work of those governors, and we need more skilled governors to help schools to improve, particularly in many of the disadvantaged areas where school performance is, at most, inadequate.
Every school needs a high-performing governing body that understands its responsibilities and that focuses on its core strategic functions; that is made up of people with the relevant skills and experience; that operates efficiently and effectively through appropriate structures and procedures; and that strives for continuous improvement, in order to perform to its full potential.
We need governing bodies that think innovatively and strategically to create robust governance arrangements, including across groups of schools, which is a point my hon. Friend mentioned in his contribution. It is this Government’s ambition that that is true of all governing bodies in terms of their quality standards, and I will say more about each of the key critical areas that we expect governing bodies to be able to address.
To begin, let me consider the core functions of governing bodies. In our view, high-quality governance is characterised by a relentless focus on three core strategic functions: first, setting the vision of the school; secondly, holding the head teacher and senior managers of the school to account for their educational performance; and thirdly, ensuring—of course—that the school’s money is well and properly spent.
Those functions reflect the criteria that Ofsted inspectors use when considering the effectiveness of governing bodies. All governing bodies, in both maintained schools and academies, should focus on these functions, leaving the senior leadership team responsible and accountable for the day-to-day management of the school. They should stay focused on these big issues and other specific statutory duties, and avoid being distracted by the myriad other things that might compete for their attention.
We believe that governing bodies are best placed to determine how to carry out their strategic functions, and their approach needs to reflect their own specific local circumstances and should be guided by Government only when that is genuinely necessary. That is why we have already reduced prescription and cut back on some of the unnecessary regulations that exist. Our ambition is that all governing bodies are made up of people who have the necessary skills and competencies to carry out effectively the demanding strategic functions that I have just outlined.
As my colleague in the Department, the Under-Secretary of State with responsibility for schools, Lord Nash, has said on previous occasions, in our view it is right that governors should be volunteers but they cannot afford to be amateurs in an area that is so critically important. We need to professionalise the quality of school governance, so that sitting on a board of governors is seen as being akin to the strategic responsibility of sitting on the board of a company or of a charity.
The best governing bodies identify explicitly the skills and competencies they need, and regularly audit the skills of their current members. They actively seek to recruit new governors and to invest in the professional development of their existing members, to address any gaps that might exist. Because governing bodies are best placed to determine the types of skills and people they need, we have given them more flexibility to decide for themselves the number and mix of governors that they need. Maintained school governing bodies can opt to reconstitute under new regulations, which my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud will know we introduced last year. Those new regulations allow the governing bodies to be smaller and more skills-focused, which is something I think my hon. Friend supports and which he has raised with my colleague, Lord Nash, on previous occasions.
We have also updated our model documentation, to give academies themselves much greater freedom in how they constitute their governing bodies. While our priority is to give governing bodies the freedom to decide their size for themselves, our view is that governing bodies should be no bigger than they need to be to secure all the crucial skills necessary for effective governance. In our view, it is not helpful to have anyone on a governing body who is in a passive or inactive role. In general, we think that smaller governing bodies are likely to be more dynamic and effective, as shown by the success of many of the tightly focused interim executive boards and by the testimony of many academy sponsors who need to reform the unwieldy governance in the schools they inherit. However, I will also accept the challenge put by the Chairman of the Education Committee, and the view taken by the Committee in its report, when I acknowledge that ultimately it is the quality of these individuals, rather than counting heads, that is particularly important.
In line with the core functions that I have outlined, governing bodies should not necessarily see themselves as the primary vehicle for ensuring meaningful engagement with parents and other stakeholders. It is vital that the governance of the school is informed by the views of parents, and for that to be done well it requires dedicated and appropriate arrangements. So, while there are still rules that governing bodies need to follow on how they are constituted, the emphasis should be on recruiting governors for the skills that they can individually contribute. After all, all governors—no matter what constituency they are drawn from—are there, once they are around the table, to govern in the interests of pupils and not primarily to play a representative role.
People from the world of work can bring a particular range of transferrable and relevant skills, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud mentioned in his contribution. That is why we plan to work more closely with the CBI and other business partners to engage more businesses in actively promoting governance to their employees. Forging links with business can be of huge value to schools, but the strategic nature of school governance also means that employees develop key skills that are often of benefit to them and indeed to their own employers.
The Government already fund the School Governor’s One Stop Shop to offer a free service to schools and local authorities, in order to help them to find new and highly skilled governors. The number of governors that SGOSS has recruited has risen year-on-year to nearly 1,600 volunteers in the financial year to date, compared with 1,400 for the same period last year. I hope that my hon. Friends will promote the work of SGOSS to local authorities and schools in their constituencies.
Governing groups of schools can be highly effective, and it can also bring many benefits. In particular, it can help to drive up standards by enabling governing bodies to compare and contrast across schools, thereby creating more robust accountability. It can also enable highly skilled governing bodies to have an impact in more schools. We in the Department encourage governing bodies to put aside any issues of territorialism, and to consider—where it is appropriate—forming a single governing body across a federation of schools. Alternatively they can, of course, consider a multi-academy trust or an umbrella trust, which benefit from the greater freedoms of academy status.
Before I talk about what happens when there are issues or problems, I need to address the importance of governing bodies striving for continuous improvement, and the ways that we are helping them to improve. To achieve the very best for the children in their school, every governing body needs to reflect regularly on its effectiveness and performance, and governing bodies should not be shy of paying for high-quality training and development to help improve their skills and effectiveness. There are many options, including the expanding offer from the National College for Teaching and Leadership. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud will know, the NCTL has also developed the national leaders of governance programme to provide free peer mentoring support for chairs. We are looking to develop the number of NLGs, with another 150 being selected this year.
I now come to the crucial role of Ofsted. It is a sad fact that in too many schools governance is still weak and does not create enough robust local accountability for standards in schools. When Ofsted identifies underperformance, we share the view expressed by both its chief inspector and my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud that there is a need for urgent and timely action.
In each particular case, there will be various considerations in determining the appropriate response, which will not always be the need for an interim executive board; for example, some governing bodies may themselves decide to seek a sponsored-academy solution. For that reason, we do not envisage this sort of recommendation being made in the inspection report before the various contextual factors have been taken into account. However, good, clear reporting by Ofsted on the weaknesses in governance will help to inform decisions on what action would be appropriate.
This Government recognise and celebrate the role of governors, and we are committed to improving the quality of governance in the ways that my hon. Friend has indicated today.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 8 months ago)
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Stella Creasy (Walthamstow) (Lab/Co-op)
2. What steps he is taking to ensure a sufficient supply of primary school places; and if he will make a statement.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are spending £5 billion in this Parliament on creating new school places—more than double the amount spent by the previous Government over the same time frame. We have worked closely with councils on the reforms to school place funding, so it is now more accurate than ever before, targeting money to the places where the demand is greatest.
Stella Creasy
The Department for Education will be well aware of the concerns of parents in Walthamstow about the lack of school places, 400 of them having written to the Department. The only new school which has opened on its watch, a free school, has no outdoor play space. Are the Government happy, especially given the previous comments about sport, that this is good enough for kids in my constituency?
Mr Laws
We are very proud of our record, not just across the country, but in the hon. Lady’s area. I looked at the figures in preparation for today’s session, comparing the amount of basic need funding under the Labour Government with the allocations during this Parliament. Under the previous Government the allocations to her authority were £1 million, less than £1 million, less than £1 million, and so on—£11.2 million in total over the previous Parliament. Under this coalition Government the allocation will not be £11.2 million. It will be £126.7 million.
Jake Berry (Rossendale and Darwen) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend think the policy of uncontrolled immigration pursued by the Opposition has led to some of the pressure that we see on primary school places in areas such as Rossendale and Darwen?
Mr Laws
There certainly are pressures from immigration, and there are other pressures on the birth rate too. These pressures have been known about since 2003, and in spite of that the Labour Government took 200,000 places in primary schools out of circulation, notwithstanding the warnings from those now on the Government Benches.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
We have heard an incredibly complacent answer from the Minister. In 2010 the Secretary of State promised a new generation of good small schools with smaller class sizes. Since then we have seen a trebling of the number of very large primary schools, and in the past year a doubling in the number of infant classes of more than 30 children. Does the Minister not regret the decision in 2010 to cancel Labour’s primary school building programme?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman needs to acknowledge, in fairness, that this Government are allocating more than twice the amount his Government allocated for basic need. He needs to acknowledge that his Government made a mistake in withdrawing 200,000 places from primary education in the period from 2003. If he really is concerned about our capital expenditure on schools, perhaps he can tell me whether the Labour party is planning to increase it.
Stephen Twigg
It is time that this Government took some responsibility for their own decisions. They have been in power for three and a half years and we have a crisis in primary school places. Last week the Secretary of State told us that free schools would solve this. Next year only one in three of the free schools that will open will be primary schools. How does that solve the problem? Will he change course even at this stage and give top priority in capital spending for new school places in areas that need extra school places?
Mr Laws
If the hon. Gentleman were doing his homework, he would know that the vast majority of new free schools are in areas of basic need and that almost half the free schools that we have just announced are in places such as London. I gently say to him that I did not hear an answer to the question of whether he is really suggesting that we need additional capital expenditure. What many in the House and outside will detect is the Labour party, in the same way as it did over Syria, offering criticisms but no serious policy solutions.
Dan Rogerson (North Cornwall) (LD)
Further to my right hon. Friend’s answer concerning the impact of free schools, can he assure me that those that are planned in areas where the need may not be as acute will remain under review, so that any further capital investment can be prioritised to deliver the places that we need?
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
Will the Schools Minister welcome the willingness of Rotherham council to add to the money that the Department is providing under the basic need funding to allow Cortonwood infants school and Brampton the Ellis junior school to expand their places? Why is it that half the free schools open already are in areas where there is no need for extra places?
Mr Laws
The second statement is simply wrong. The overwhelming majority of free schools are in areas of basic need. On the first question, I would be very happy to meet the right hon. Gentleman to discuss his specific proposal. We want to be as pragmatic and helpful as possible to councils that face these pressures.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
Following the recent Public Accounts Committee report, it is clear to me that we have pressure on primary school places because Labour was obsessed with building landlocked expensive private finance initiative schools and decided to remove a quarter of a million primary school places during a baby boom. What is the quickest way for local communities to respond?
Mr Laws
The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that from 2003 onwards, the Office for National Statistics was pointing to one of the biggest increases in the birth rate for many generations. Those who are now on the Government Benches were warning the Labour Government that there would be a real crisis in primary school places. In spite of that, 200,000 places were removed between 2003 and 2010. Labour Members will be pleased to know that almost all the 200,000 places have been replaced by this coalition Government.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
3. What assessment he has made of the outcome of Ofsted inspections of the first free schools.
Bill Esterson (Sefton Central) (Lab)
T8. Both the Minister for Schools and the Secretary of State completely failed to address the question they were asked about free schools policy. Fifty-one per cent. of all free schools have been built in areas where there are surplus places while there is a crisis in primary school places elsewhere. Is not the point that free schools policy has failed to deal with the shortage of places where they are most needed?
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
No, the hon. Gentleman is completely wrong. The vast majority of places in free schools are in areas of basic need. As I indicated earlier, of the recent free schools announced, around half are in the London areas where the pressure is greatest, so the figures he gives are simply inaccurate.
James Morris (Halesowen and Rowley Regis) (Con)
T4. In the past four years, Windsor high school, Earls high school and St Michael’s high school in my constituency have opened excellent sixth forms, adding to the excellent work done at Ormiston Forge academy and the local further education college. What is the Secretary of State doing to allow high- performance schools to set up sixth forms and to give them the necessary resources to expand?
Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)
The Schools Minister was confident that the money set aside by the Government to meet rising demand for primary places will be sufficient, but parents in Lewisham do not share his confidence. Will he meet me and a representative from the borough to explore the significant shortfall it has identified in its primary capital programme?
Mr Laws
I would be delighted to do that. I just gently point out to those in local authorities who have been raising fears recently, that the statistics they put out a few days ago included projections of future increases in the primary population, but without giving consideration to the additional places that will be created beyond 2012 from the additional capital we have allocated. Local authorities need to be very careful with the information we have given, but I would be delighted to meet the hon. Lady.
Rehman Chishti (Gillingham and Rainham) (Con)
T5. It was recently reported that the Government taskforce on tackling extremism was looking at encouraging Muslim soldiers to visit schools to improve community cohesion. How far has the scheme got?
Stephen Phillips (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)
T7. My right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware of the extra costs of funding rural school places. Will he tell the House what steps the Government are taking to ensure that school places in Lincolnshire are adequately funded?
Mr Laws
My hon. and learned Friend raises an important issue. For too long Governments have been aware that there is not fair funding of schools throughout the country, yet in the past no action was taken. That is why the Chancellor announced in the spending review that we will be holding a consultation into a fair national funding formula for schools, which will deal with precisely the issue my hon. and learned Friend raises.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Given the further squeeze on the funding of education for 16 to 19-year olds, is it not now the time for the Government to give sixth-form colleges the same freedom on VAT that is enjoyed by universities, technical colleges, free schools, academies and maintained schools?
Targeted Capital Funding for New School Places
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Today I am announcing the outcome of the applications to the targeted basic need programme. The programme was launched in March this year to provide additional funding for school places in areas where they are most needed. Local authorities were invited to bid for funding for new schools, or to expand existing outstanding and good schools.
The targeted basic need funding brings the total amount of funding allocated to local authorities for new school places over the current spending review period to over £5 billion—more than double the £1.9 billion spent by the previous Government over an equivalent period. That funding is sufficient to provide the 417,000 places we need by 2015. By September this year, we expect 190,000 extra places will have been created during this Parliament, with more still in the pipeline.
Our main basic need allocations—which go directly to local authorities, and are based on projections of their need—were issued in March, and gave authorities funding for the next two years, enabling them to plan provision. Those allocations totalled some £1.6 billion and will support local authorities to keep pace with projections of demand.
On top of this, we invited applications from local authorities for additional new places, particularly focused on places in outstanding or good schools, and on creating new academies sponsored by organisations with a good track record in educational success. We are determined that every pupil should not just have a place, but that the growth in the system is, as far as possible, concentrated in schools that parents and pupils really want to go to. So I am delighted to announce that the targeted basic need programme will provide £820 million to fund an additional 74,000 high-quality school places on top of those already created and funded—all in areas that face the greatest pressure on places. These new places will be in 45 new schools and in 333 expanding schools that are rated as outstanding or good.
The number of pupils in England will continue to rise and ensuring that every child is able to attend an outstanding or good school in their local area is at the heart of the Government’s comprehensive programme of reform of the school system.
We will continue to set up free schools where there is both demand from parents and where they can make the biggest difference to local provision through addressing basic need and improving the quality of local schools.
Over the longer term, we will also fund a further 500,000 places up to 2020-21, as announced in the recent spending round—again, we judge that this will be sufficient to meet the projected demand for school places.
I will write today to all those MPs with successful projects in their constituencies, and I will place a list of successful projects in the Libraries of both Houses.
Pupil Premium
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
We are today announcing the launch of our consultation on primary assessment and accountability, alongside a significant increase in the pupil premium for primary schools. This is about delivering a step change in aspirations and attainment in primary education, and these proposals are among the most important that our Department has announced since the formation of the coalition Government. We want as many children as possible to be ready for secondary school by the time they leave primary school, and the reforms we are announcing today are designed to ensure that pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education, and that schools do not allow pupils to fall behind. We are confident that primary schools and pupils can and will rise to that challenge.
We want to see a step change in attainment at the end of primary school. In the past, the achievement bar was set too low and too few pupils cleared that bar. Our ambition is for all pupils—excepting some of those with particular learning needs—to be ready for secondary school at age 11. That means we need a higher measure of what success looks like. We are already raising the threshold for the percentage of pupils to be ready for secondary school from 60% to 65%, but we know that many schools and teachers have already raised their game way beyond that level. For that reason, in the future we will expect a high proportion of pupils—85%—to reach the new, higher secondary readiness threshold for a school. Since we know that both children and schools can achieve that, it is right that we set it as a minimum standard.
Our new national curriculum is designed to give schools genuine opportunities to take ownership of the curriculum. The new programmes of study, published on 8 July, set out what pupils should be taught by the end of primary education. Teachers will be able to develop a school curriculum that delivers the core content in a way that is challenging and relevant for their pupils. Statutory assessment in core subjects at the end of key stages is designed primarily to enable robust external accountability. We will continue to prescribe statutory assessment arrangements in English, maths and science. National curriculum tests in English and maths will continue, and will show whether pupils have met a demanding secondary readiness standard, which will remain the same from year to year. We propose to report pupils’ test results as a scaled score to ensure that test outcomes are comparable over time. At the moment, pupils are ranked by levels. In future we will report each pupil’s performance relative to their peers nationally, as well as their levels of progress. This is key information for parents: it will help them easily to see how their child has performed compared with the national cohort of pupils.
It is vital that we set high aspirations for all schools and pupils. Our new expectations will prepare children for success. At the moment pupils are being asked to reach a bar that too often sets them up for failure rather than success. Indeed we know that over half of pupils who currently reach just the 4C benchmark standard fail to secure five good GCSEs including English and maths. So that all children, whatever their circumstances, can arrive in secondary school ready to succeed, we are giving significantly more money to primary school pupils eligible for the pupil premium. That will support the step change in ambition we are announcing today.
We introduced the pupil premium in 2011 to help schools close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. In 2014-15, total funding through the pupil premium will increase by £625 million to the total of £2.5 billion pledged by the coalition in 2010. We will use the extra funding in the year ahead to increase significantly the level of the pupil premium for primary schools to £1,300 per pupil, compared with £900 in the current year. This 44% rise in the pupil premium next year is the largest cash rise so far. That should enable more targeted interventions to support disadvantaged pupils to be secondary ready and achieve our ambitious expectations for what pupils should know and be able to do by the end of their primary education. Early intervention is crucial: the more disadvantaged pupils who leave primary school with strong literacy and numeracy, the greater their chances of achieving good GCSEs. We will fix the level of the secondary pupil premium in the autumn, but it will rise further, by at least the level of inflation next year.
We also want to treat schools fairly by acknowledging the performance of schools whose pupils achieve well despite a low starting point, even if that does not reach the very ambitious attainment targets we are setting. We will therefore look at how we can introduce a robust measure of progress that we can take into consideration when holding schools to account. A school that does not achieve the attainment threshold will not be judged to be below the floor standard if its pupils are making good progress. The progress measure will also help identify coasting schools, whose pupils do not achieve their full potential and should be doing much better even if their school is meeting the attainment targets. Ofsted will focus its inspections more closely on schools below and just above floor standards, and inspect schools with good performance on these measures less frequently.
We will continue to report on the progress pupils make during primary education. In order to measure pupils’ progress, we need to measure how each pupil’s end of key stage 2 test results compare with the results of pupils with similar prior attainment. This is an opportunity to reconsider the structure of statutory assessment early in primary schools. In particular, we are consulting on when we should have a baseline test or assessment to measure pupils’ progress. Currently the baseline against which we measure progress is at the end of key stage 1. We could continue to keep the baseline at this stage. Alternatively, we could introduce a similar teacher-led baseline check early in reception, which would help teachers understand the stage the child has reached and allow the crucial progress made in reception, year 1 and year 2 to be reflected in the accountability system. Many schools do that. Our consultation will seek views on which is the better option.
Finally, we recognise that teachers are professionals, and we want to give schools more freedom over the way they measure assessment. We have already announced that we will remove the current system of national curriculum levels and level descriptors, which imposes a single system and prescribes a detailed sequence for what pupils should be taught. That will leave schools free to decide how to track pupils’ progress. Ofsted will expect to see evidence of pupils’ progress, but inspections will be informed by the pupil tracking data that schools choose to keep.
Taken together, this combination of measures will ensure that pupils are ready for success in secondary education, and a better start in secondary school will ensure a better start in life. This country is now moving from an education system that served the needs of a minority to a system of high expectation and high standards for every single pupil. Today’s announcements are a key step in that continued journey. I commend this statement to the House.
Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister of State for advance notice of his statement.
When Labour came to power in 1997 we inherited a sorry state in the education system. From day one we gave priority to primary education. In 1997 only 59% of 11-year-olds reached the expected level of attainment in maths and 65% in English. By 2010 these figures had risen to 79% and 80% respectively. That was huge progress, but I agree that we need to build on this success. I take the opportunity to pay tribute to the hard work of heads, teachers and support staff in primary schools across the country.
It is right that we have high expectation for all children in all schools, raising aspiration and unleashing potential. We will engage constructively with this consultation. We know from outstanding primary schools such as Cuckoo Hall primary in Enfield and Westfield community primary school in Wigan that all children can realise their true ability when they receive an excellent education. On leaving primary school, children need to be prepared with the knowledge, the skills and the resilience to take on the secondary curriculum. Despite massive progress, there are still too many children who are ill-equipped when they begin their secondary education.
Ensuring that all children reach at least the expected levels in maths and English is crucial. High standards of numeracy and literacy are vital; so, too, is a broad and rich curriculum that promotes creativity, enrichment, citizenship and resilience. I worry that the Government’s approach to the curriculum is too narrow and risks selling children short. What assurances can the Minister give that the Government’s changes to the accountability system will promote breadth and depth of learning, as well as literacy and numeracy? He has set out a new floor target of 85%, but that target is for an assessment that the Government have yet to define. Surely that is putting the cart before the horse. Would it not make for better policy to define the learning outcomes first? My worry is that this is another classic case of policy making on the hoof.
Similarly, the plan for ranking 11-year-olds has all the hallmarks of such an approach. To rank 11-year-olds runs the risk of removing year-on-year consistency, because children will be benchmarked against their peers in their current year, rather than against a common standard. Does the Minister agree that this risks damaging standards by not ensuring consistency over time?
The Government have sent out confused signals about attainment and progress. On the one hand they are scrapping level descriptors, which heads and teachers tell me are crucial for monitoring progress between assessments, yet on the other hand, the Minister is rightly emphasising progress measures today. That is very confusing. I ask the Government to think again about the abolition of level descriptors.
On the baseline measure for five-year-olds, there is sense in developing policy about how best to establish prior attainment to provide both teachers and parents with a clear indicator at the start of primary school. The devil will be in the detail, so it is vital that there is full consultation on that.
Finally, on the pupil premium, additional funding to support the progress of disadvantaged children is welcome. I have seen many schools that have made excellent use of the pupil premium. In his statement, though, the Minister said, “Early intervention is crucial”, and I agree with him. However, how does that sit with the fact that the biggest cuts in spending in his Department have been in early intervention funding? Can the Minister assure the House that additional funding really does mean additional funding?
I worry that the Minister may—to coin a phrase—be robbing Paul to pay Paul. The Chancellor announced in the spending review that the Government are moving to a national funding formula. The independent Institute for Fiscal Studies has warned that this move could hit schools with large deprived intakes. Can he reassure the House that this really is new money and not simply giving money to schools with a lot of disadvantaged kids today, which is welcome, but taking it away in a couple of years when the national funding formula comes in?
Mr Laws
It certainly is new money—I will comment on that in greater detail in a moment.
I welcome the sensible and constructive approach that the hon. Gentleman has taken. I particularly welcome the fact that he has said that he is prepared to engage with us in dealing with some serious and important issues, such as the baseline for measuring progress. It encourages me that we can have a sensible consultation process that genuinely listens and designs a system that will be better and will last for the long term.
Let me respond briefly to five points that the hon. Gentleman made in his response. First, on the Government’s inheritance, I accept that progress was made under the previous Government, particularly in some parts of the country such as London. However, our inheritance of aspirations at the end of primary level was, frankly, hopelessly low. Even today, we allow schools potentially to pass their floor targets when one third of their pupils or more fail to achieve a basic level of English and maths. Worse still, our very measure of achievement—the 4C measure—leads to more than half the youngsters who achieve just that level failing to get five good GCSEs. In other words, we have been sending out a message about what success looks like at the end of primary school which is totally wrong. Indeed, some of the best schools in the country—including St Joseph’s primary school in Camden, which the Deputy Prime Minister and I visited this morning—have already moved well beyond 4C and in many cases are aiming at much higher levels, such as 4A, 5C and so forth. The Government need to catch up with those schools, which are leading the debate in education.
The second point was about the broadness and richness of the experience in schools. The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that, although the concentration on English and maths is important, we do not want that to lead to a dramatic narrowing of the curriculum. The other subjects that people take, both academic and vocational—arts, music and sport—are incredibly important. However, no one can succeed in secondary education if they cannot read and add up. No one can enjoy the opportunities in all the other subjects if they are not equipped with those basic skills. I would also refer the hon. Gentleman to the changes we have already announced in the secondary measures of accountability. We will be incentivising schools to take not just five but eight GCSEs, and we will allow that to include vocational as well as academic subjects.
The third point that the hon. Gentleman made was about whether 85% was the right level and whether we were right to set such an ambitious target now, in advance of the precise measures being introduced in 2016. I think we are right to set out those principles now. The schools that he and I are familiar with, from inner London and elsewhere, are already setting levels of aspiration of 85%, 90% or 95%, at an even higher level than 4B, which I talked about in a speech a couple of months ago, so I think that we are right to raise expectations now. For too long we have had expectations set by very low levels, which are more about the levels set for school intervention than about reasonable aspirations for all schools.
On the ranking of 11-year-olds, let me make it absolutely clear that we are not talking about publishing information about individual students at a national level. That would of course be totally wrong. What we are talking about is something that I think virtually every parent in the country will welcome, which is more information—and more meaningful information—about how their children are doing. At the moment, apart from a few people in the Department for Education and around the House, level descriptors frankly mean nothing to the average parent. Having a mark, a measure of progress and a clear sense of where their pupil is versus the rest of the cohort is only sensible. Parents could do that at the moment through the levels process, if they could actually understand that process, which is so complicated. What we are doing will help parents, but we will listen to the messages that come back in the consultation.
Finally, let me turn to the hon. Gentleman’s point about money and early intervention. What we are announcing is about doing a lot more through early intervention. The additional money for the pupil premium that the Government have delivered, even in these times of austerity, is something of which the coalition can feel incredibly proud. The levels we are setting today will mean that the additional money going to pupils from the pupil premium from their time in primary school will be £8,000 or £9,000 per pupil. That is a massive amount to help schools across the country, particularly in disadvantaged areas, to bring children up to a reasonable standard.
As for early years, the Under-Secretary of State, my hon. Friend the Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), who leads on early years and child care, and the Deputy Prime Minister have announced a two-year offer, which extends early-years support to the most disadvantaged two-year-olds, going way beyond anything the previous Government were able to deliver. This Government have a huge amount to be proud of, in offering schools this money to support such ambitious aspirations.
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
The Select Committee on Education had some outstanding head teachers before it this morning, talking about the possible setting up of a college of teaching. One point they all made was about their desire for greater continuity in policy making. I therefore congratulate the Minister on making the offer to the Opposition, and the Opposition on their response in turn, to ensure a common policy that gives stability to education. With the increase in funding for the pupil premium, will he say what role he sees for subject specialists at primary level to help to raise attainment not just in English and maths, but across the broad swathe of subjects to which he has referred?
Mr Laws
I welcome the comments of the Chairman of the Select Committee. He is absolutely right that we need to aim for greater continuity in education policy. After all, we are talking about young people who, even individually, will take a considerable number of years to go through the education system. We want to ensure as much cross-party consensus as possible on some of the changes, so that they last.
My hon. Friend is also absolutely right that the additional money will give primary schools the opportunity to bring in greater subject specialism, which will help to boost the quality of teaching not just in English and maths, but in all the other subjects, which are so crucial and which the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) mentioned earlier.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough) (Lab)
I welcome the focus on primary education in the statement, which is a good thing. It is time we had that focus. I also welcome the extra spending on primary education, but I am worried about the proposal for national examinations at the age of three as well as at 11. May I urge the Minister to drop the exams for three-year-olds? As someone who represents a town where most of the pupils already do the 11-plus, let me tell him that the consequences for children—as well as for parents—of knowing that they are at the bottom of the list need to be examined. It breaks my heart every year when I have children in my constituency surgery—hauled in by their parents—who do not have the bicycle for passing the 11-plus and are going to a school that they never applied to as a result.
Mr Laws
I am grateful to the hon. Lady for the early comments she made. I should point out that what we are talking about is on entry to school, not at a ridiculous age. [Interruption.] Frankly, many schools—to which I would be happy to take the hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman), who is shouting from a sedentary position—are already doing that type of assessment. They are doing it to inform their education and also to measure progress. We have descriptors at the moment that classify some young people as the lowest performers. That information is available at the moment; it is just very difficult for anyone to understand. Why should we impede parents in understanding more what their pupils are doing in schools?
I am particularly grateful to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, who leads for the Labour party on these issues, for being pragmatic. Although I quite understand the concerns about assessing youngsters at an early age, the logic of measuring progress, which is not in dispute in this House or among head teachers, teachers or parents, means that it is rational to measure progress right across the educational experience. It is not rational simply to pick an arbitrary date at the end of key stage 1 and to measure progress only from there. That is why we think it is sensible to have this debate.
Mr Nick Gibb (Bognor Regis and Littlehampton) (Con)
I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his statement today, and particularly on the abolition of the meaningless and distorting levels in key stage assessment. Does he agree that the substantial rise in the pupil premium will mean that every school should now be able to ensure that all children, regardless of their background, will be fluent readers and fluent in arithmetic—including long division, long multiplication and fractions—by the time they leave primary school? Does he also agree that there will no longer be any excuse for an attainment gap between those from poorer and wealthier backgrounds?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is reassuring to be able to visit schools with very large numbers of disadvantaged youngsters, such as the one I mentioned earlier, and to see that the attainment gaps have now been extinguished. This shows schools across the country that it is possible to close that gap, and that that is not just the perspective of some DFE Minister but the experience of schools across the land that are achieving that. The huge amounts of money that we are now putting into the pupil premium and other disadvantage funding for schools with disadvantaged youngsters will remove what were legitimate excuses 10 or 20 years ago about the absence of the resources necessary to achieve these big changes. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who did so much in his time in the Department to champion higher standards and to pave the way for much of what is in today’s statement.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
Early intervention is certainly the key to the future for the hundreds of children in my constituency who have a much tougher start in life than most people. How will the Minister ensure that the pupil premium is targeted specifically on individuals rather than being swallowed up by the wider school budgets, and how will he hold head teachers to account for looking after those individuals?
Mr Laws
That is an absolutely crucial point. The Department is not going to go back to the fashion under some previous Secretaries of State of micro-managing individual schools and telling them what interventions they need to deliver. Schools have a better understanding of the interventions that will work for the school and the individuals than we will ever do, sitting in a Department in London. However, we are going to hold schools to account for ensuring that whatever interventions they use are successful. We have worked closely with Ofsted to ensure that this is a key part of the accountability process for schools, and that there is a much greater focus by Ofsted on narrowing the gap. The chief inspector has made it clear that schools will no longer be ranked outstanding if they are failing in this key area, and there will be a requirement on schools that are not delivering a good standard to commission support from key leaders in education, such as national leaders of education, to bring advice into the school when it is failing to narrow the gaps. We have also recently appointed the widely respected John Dunford, who has great experience in education, to serve as a champion of the pupil premium and to spread the message about best practice to schools across the country.
Laura Sandys (South Thanet) (Con)
Picking up on best practice, the primary school in the poorest ward in my constituency, Newington, has seen a 40% increase in standards in English and maths. The head teacher puts that down solely to the pupil premium so, locally, people will be very pleased with this suite of measures. One measure that seems to be being misinterpreted is the assessment of three-year-olds. Responsible teachers will make an assessment of the young people coming into their school so that they can put the right measures in place. It is not an exam, as has been suggested by some Opposition Members.
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Many schools are already using baseline assessment on entry to school; that is the rational thing to do. It is also the most rational way of measuring progress, rather than doing it over an arbitrary period. I also agree with her that the additional money for the pupil premium and the additional accountability and focus will be crucial to narrowing the gap. The huge amounts of money going into schools with large numbers of pupil-premium pupils will result in some dramatic and impressive progress over the next few years in improving the lot of young people from those backgrounds.
Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)
What the Minister is saying reveals nothing other than his lack of understanding of small children and of child development. What is appropriate at 16, at 14 and at 11 is not appropriate at five. For five-year-olds, learning should be enjoyable, pleasurable and fun. Does he not understand that if he formalises these assessments, he will produce anxious teachers, anxious parents and anxious children?
Mr Laws
I am afraid that the mood of consensus has come to an end. The hon. Lady is completely wrong. These assessments are already being completed in schools up and down the land, and most pupils do not even know that they are going through some great baseline assessment process. They just think that they are doing the sort of things that children do in schools. What is the logic of measuring progress, giving it huge status and talking about its importance, which we all do, if we then say that we will measure progress only from halfway through primary education? That does not make sense.
Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con)
I greatly welcome the statement, not least because of the powerful point that Sir Michael Wilshaw made in his “Unseen Children” report recently. That report provides full justification for the measures that my right hon. Friend has announced. Will he reassure the House that the thrust of the measures will also tackle schools in rural and coastal areas, given the clear underachievement that has been identified in them?
Mr Laws
I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The reports by Ofsted and others highlight the real risk of focusing only on schools with large numbers of disadvantaged youngsters. Of course those schools are important, and they will get the largest amount out of the pupil premium, but the schools with only a modest number of such youngsters will no longer be able to hide behind high overall attainment figures. Our focus on progress will ensure that the schools that are getting high levels of attainment but not delivering enough for all their pupils will be obliged to do so. The accountability measures will also ensure that we pick up any large gaps in performance between disadvantaged pupils and the rest, whether they are in our inner cities, the leafiest parts of the country or our coastal communities.
Mr Andrew Love (Edmonton) (Lab/Co-op)
I welcome the additional resources for the pupil premium. The Minister said that this was additional funding. Perhaps he could tell us exactly where it is coming from. Also, he avoided answering the question from my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on the national funding formula and the possibility that the campaign by Conservative Back Benchers to narrow the gap between well-funded and less-well-funded schools would inevitably undermine the pupil premium.
Mr Laws
The money is coming from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as the money coming into the DFE does, and it is additional money. This is a fantastic settlement for schools in a time of incredible austerity in the public finances. Whichever party was in government at this time would have to grapple with difficult decisions. The fact that we have built this programme on a protected schools budget is fantastic news for schools. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that when I go round the country to schools, especially those with large numbers of disadvantaged youngsters, they are really conscious of the additional money and they positively welcome it. On the national funding formula, I can assure him that we are determined to introduce a fairer mechanism of funding across the country, and we will ensure that we do it in a way that does not undermine the strong focus on funding disadvantaged areas that we have adopted while we have been in government.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
I congratulate the Minister on his announcement on the pupil premium. This is another promise from the front cover of the Liberal Democrat manifesto at the last election that we have delivered in government. However, not every school I visit has been able to tell me how its pupil premium money is being spent. Does he agree that, if the pupil premium is to deliver on the ambition that we share for it, the parents of all disadvantaged pupils should be told how that money is being spent to help their children?
Mr Laws
I agree with my hon. Friend on both those points. Schools already have a duty at the very least to put on their websites the ways in which they are spending that money and to be as clear as possible with parents and pupils, rather than simply putting broad statements on their websites. The schools that have so far not realised what the money is for—if there are such schools—or that are not spending it effectively will soon find that they have no choice other than to focus on what the money is designed for, because this is now a key part of the Ofsted inspection framework. In my experience, the one thing that teachers and head teachers pay very close attention to is the chief inspector of schools.
Chi Onwurah (Newcastle upon Tyne Central) (Lab)
Primary school teachers in Newcastle do tremendous work, maximising the educational opportunities of children often in very challenging circumstances. They will welcome this additional money, but to justify that welcome, will the Minister confirm whether this is additional money to what has already been announced in the comprehensive spending review?
Mr Laws
It is the allocation of the last tranche of pupil premium money, which is additional money. What that says is that having announced almost £1.9 billion of pupil premium money so far, we have taken the very deliberate decision for the final tranche of extra money that we have allocated in the last year to go predominantly to primary schools to support this intervention. It is additional money.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Children arriving in reception classes without basic speech and language skills face additional challenges, as do their teachers, in working towards secondary transfer. Will the Minister encourage schools to promote public library membership for very young children, as is happening in the London borough of Havering, which has introduced automatic enrolment for reception children and support packages for parents so that children are introduced to books and can take them home to enjoy all the benefits that flow from them?
Mr Laws
The hon. Lady makes a crucial point. I think schools should encourage pupils to access libraries. In my experience, many schools are already doing very good work these days in school to make sure that young people are encouraged to read and enjoy books, but the hon. Lady is quite right to point out that we have a very effective public library service, which should also be used by schools.
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood) (Con)
Will the Minister clarify whether the pupil premium is an addition to the general budget of the school or should it be spent only on those pupils who attract the premium?
Mr Laws
The money is there to be spent on those disadvantaged youngsters who would otherwise be highly likely to have poor performance. Schools must understand that that is the purpose of the money and why they are getting it. They are free to decide how to spend it, but they must spend it to narrow these gaps and focus on pupils who are the priority for the premium.
Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con)
I welcome this statement and I will focus on the pupil premium. One of the regrettable reasons why Peterborough local education authority languishes at the bottom of the league table for educational attainment for disadvantaged children relates to the issue of English as an additional language. I shall meet the Minister in September to discuss these issues. Will he look again at incorporating in the methodology for awarding the pupil premium the important issue of English as an additional language, which is significant for the allocation of resources and will drive up educational attainment in Peterborough and across the country?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes a very important point—that youngsters with English as an additional language often face challenges, particularly when they go into school. As he will know, however, they often make extremely rapid progress, performing above the level of young people who have English as their first language. We will take the opportunity provided by the review of the national funding formula to make sure that we get proper support for young people with English as an additional language so that schools have the right amount of money for the right amount of time to help these children to perform well.
Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)
What advice would the Minister give to head teachers about parents, albeit a small percentage of them, who simply do not encourage their children to perform academically? What can be done about that?
Mr Laws
What is very encouraging—the head teacher of the primary school that the Deputy Prime Minister and I visited this morning spoke to us about it—is that many schools nowadays are not simply sitting back and waiting for parents to engage and shrugging their shoulders when they do not. Many of the best schools in the most deprived communities are going out to engage with reluctant parents and they often have considerable success in persuading those parents that education is important for their young children’s future. This can be a way of engaging parents who might not have had good educational experiences themselves, potentially enriching their own lives by contact with the school. I would encourage head teachers and teachers with parents of the type that my hon. Friend describes to visit some of the schools that are doing this work very well, as I think they could learn a tremendous amount from them.
Justin Tomlinson (North Swindon) (Con)
It was a great pleasure to welcome the Schools Minister on his visit to Seven Fields primary school. The school’s transformation was due to a combination of inspirational leadership, greater freedoms and the pupil premium. How should we share this best practice so that all schools can benefit from today’s announcement?
Mr Laws
It was a pleasure to visit my hon. Friend’s constituency and he was quite right when he wrote to me to highlight the fantastic achievements of this school, which sits in a disadvantaged community and could easily be languishing and struggling, but actually sets incredibly high aspirations, showing that it is possible for schools to deliver. The Government have recently started to publish tables of similar schools, where we look at schools with a similar composition of pupils and look at their performance against other similar schools. That process should encourage schools across the country that are not performing well to look at other schools with a similar intake that are doing a lot better, perhaps visiting them, talking to teachers and finding out what works. This type of school-to-school improvement should be enhanced by the additional measure of information that we are publishing.
Chris Skidmore (Kingswood) (Con)
I am sure that every Member will welcome the £400 increase in the pupil premium that will benefit primary schools in every single one of our constituencies. With this extra money, however, comes the need for added accountability, as has been mentioned. The Minister says that some schools have closed the gap entirely. When it comes to outcomes for the future, does he view it as the ultimate ambition for every school to have no gap whatever between the achievement of pupils entitled to free school meals and those who are not?
Mr Laws
Yes, because the best-performing schools across the country have shown that there is nothing inevitable about those gaps. Many schools have closed the gaps very considerably. The important thing is to make sure that the accountability system is an intelligent one, as it would be possible to close the gap but at a very low level of attainment, while some of the schools that we wrote to this year had high levels of overall attainment but large gaps, so they should have been doing better for their youngsters. Our attention was drawn to schools where there was no gap, but where the attainment of disadvantaged youngsters was not good enough. The accountability will be for the gap, but also for the progress made by disadvantaged youngsters and the level of attainment of disadvantaged youngsters in a school compared with the national average. There will be no hiding place for schools that might otherwise have a small gap but at a very modest level of attainment.
Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)
I warmly welcome the increase in the pupil premium and thank the Minister for visiting Grangetown primary school in my constituency to see the difference that it is making. I ask for the reception assessment system to recognise that children can be almost one year apart in a given cohort. Will the data be used to help address the attainment gap at the younger end of the cohort that tends to persist through school?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and I very much enjoyed my visit to Grangetown primary school in his constituency. The pupils left us with a rather large picture, 6 feet tall, which is currently hanging in my office. That school, as I recall, will be a massive beneficiary of the pupil premium investment, as something like 80% of its youngsters are entitled to the pupil premium. In a very challenging environment, the school has noticed that the additional money makes a massive difference to this school’s ability to deliver for its youngsters. My hon. Friend is right to say that, particularly in the context of an early baseline test, we need carefully to consider the impact of measuring youngsters’ achievement at a very young age and the impact of their age on their likely attainment. That important point should be properly considered.
Henry Smith (Crawley) (Con)
I very much welcome the enhancement of the pupil premium—a policy that has greatly benefited disadvantaged pupils in Crawley. I seek assurances on the assessment of pupils; will those with dyslexia receive the proper support?
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
Pupils, parents and teachers across the Kettering constituency will warmly welcome the 44% increase in the pupil premium for primary school pupils. Will the Minister recount some of the best examples he has encountered of how the pupil premium is used? How can best practice be best disseminated across our schools?
Mr Laws
Some of the best practice relates to one-to-one tuition, and a whole series of interventions, about which we are publishing information, have come from research institutions, including the Education Endowment Foundation. What we want to ensure is that the evidence of what works does not come simply from politicians, but from educational experts. It should be available for schools to look at and should not be politicised in any way, as sometimes happened in the past. We are appointing a pupil premium champion in Dr John Dunford, who will go out to schools, draw attention to what works and ensure that best practice is spread right across the country.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
Primary schools in my constituency—which contains some of the most deprived wards in the country—will warmly welcome the focus on improvement versus absolute attainment and the increase in the pupil premium, which does an enormous amount of good in Worcester. However, will my right hon. Friend note an early-day motion tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Nick Harvey) and signed by eight Liberal Democrat Members, which urges him to consider broadening the pupil premium rather than simply increasing it, and draws attention to the good that that could do in many parts of the country where the money may not be reaching all those for whom it is intended?
Mr Laws
I would be the first person to be pleased if we were able to fund a widening of access to the pupil premium. As my hon. Friend will know, we have already funded one considerable widening of entitlement by including pupils who had been receiving free school meals at any point during the previous six years. That has increased take-up of the premium to nearly a quarter of the cohort, which is a very considerable coverage. There are some other youngsters whom it would be useful to benefit, but that would depend on funding. In the meantime, I think that many of the schools to which my hon. Friend refers will be pleased to hear about the national funding formula for which he has campaigned so strongly, because it has the potential to give underfunded areas additional resources.
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley) (Con)
I try to visit a school in my constituency every Friday morning. This Friday I shall visit Helme school, and I know that the increase in the pupil premium to £1,300 per pupil will be very welcome there. However, will the Minister keep in mind special educational needs funding for smaller schools which find that an increasing number of their pupils have statements?
Mr Laws
I am delighted to hear that my hon. Friend regularly visits schools in his constituency. We can learn a great deal from that, and I hope that he receives an even warmer welcome than usual when he turns up this week to celebrate the additional pupil premium moneys. He is right to point out that the needs of some young people are such that they require additional funding beyond the pupil premium, and we will ensure that those special needs are properly met.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
There is a well-known problem of learning loss over the summer, particularly among pupils who are between primary and secondary school. In the light of work done by the Education Endowment Foundation in that connection, does the Minister intend some of the extra resources to be spent on addressing the problem? Will he also say a brief word about the level of the service pupil premium, which is very important to a number of schools in East Hampshire?
Mr Laws
The importance of learning over the summer must not be underestimated. We are aware that in some parts of the country, particularly among the more disadvantaged communities, young people can slip back during the summer months, and we will continue to fund the summer schools that help to bridge the gap. We are also seeking to provide additional flexibility which would allow some schools that want to change their hours and holiday periods to do so. Some may wish to introduce shorter summer holidays to prevent pupils from falling back.
We will certainly maintain and protect the service pupil premium, which has been valued in many parts of the country.
David Rutley (Macclesfield) (Con)
Does my hon. Friend believe that schools that have experienced a real surge in performance and transformation in attainment, such as Ash Grove school in Macclesfield, have an important role to play in helping other schools to bring about a similar transformation in their own attainment and aspiration levels by means of vehicles such as teaching alliances?
Mr Laws
I entirely agree. As I said earlier, we shall be publishing tables that will enable weak schools to learn from what is happening in stronger ones with similar intakes. I suggest that some outstanding institutions, such as the one to which my hon. Friend has referred, should also look at those tables, and should consider offering services and advice to schools in their areas that are not performing despite having very similar intakes. School-to-school improvement of that kind is often extremely effective.
Stephen Mosley (City of Chester) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has rightly concentrated on the benefit of the pupil premium to disadvantaged children, but I was not sure from his earlier answer whether the dozens of service children who attend primary schools in my constituency, which is home to 1st Battalion The Royal Welsh, would receive the additional pupil premium or whether their pupil premium would remain at the same level.
Mr Laws
Pupils who are entitled to the pupil premium in and of its own right because, for example, a parent has been out of work for a period during the preceding six years will receive the full uplift. We are protecting entitlement to the service premium, but those who receive it will not be affected by the uplift.
Primary Assessment and Accountability
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 9 months ago)
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The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I am pleased to announce today the launch of our consultation on primary assessment and accountability.
We believe it is crucial that as many children as possible should leave primary school having reached a level that leaves them ready to progress and achieve their full potential at secondary school. Our reforms to the national curriculum, statutory assessment and school accountability for primary schools are designed to ensure that pupils are well prepared for the next stage of their education and that schools do not allow pupils to fall behind.
We want to see a step change in attainment at the end of primary school. In the past, the achievement bar was set too low and too few pupils cleared this bar. Our ambition is that all pupils, excepting some of those with particular learning needs, should be secondary ready at age 11—that means using a higher measure of what success looks like. We are already raising the threshold for the percentage of pupils to be ready for secondary school to 65%. But we know that schools and teachers have already raised their game way beyond this. For that reason, we will expect a very high proportion of pupils—85%—to reach the new, higher secondary readiness threshold for a school to be above the bar. Since we know that both children and schools can achieve this, it is right that we set this as a minimum standard.
Our new national curriculum is designed to give schools genuine opportunities to take ownership of the curriculum. The new programmes of study, published on 8 July, set out what pupils should be taught by the end of primary education. Teachers will be able to develop a school curriculum that delivers the core content in a way that is challenging and relevant for their pupils.
Statutory assessment in core subjects at the end of key stages is designed primarily to enable robust external accountability. We will continue to prescribe statutory assessment arrangements in English, mathematics and science. National curriculum tests in English and mathematics will continue, and will show whether pupils have met a demanding secondary readiness standard, which will remain the same from year to year. We propose to report pupils’ test results as a scaled score, such as those used in international surveys, to make sure that test outcomes are comparable over time. We will report each pupil’s ranking in the national cohort by decile to show their performance relative to their peers nationally.
It is vital that we set high aspirations for all schools and pupils. Our new targets will prepare children for success. At the moment, pupils are being asked to reach a bar that too often sets them up to fail. So that all children—whatever their circumstances—can arrive in secondary school ready to succeed, we are giving significantly more money to primary school pupils eligible for the pupil premium. This will support this step change in ambition.
We introduced the pupil premium in 2011 to help schools close the attainment gap for disadvantaged pupils. In 2014-15, total funding through the pupil premium will increase by an extra £625 million to a total of £2.5 billion. We will use the extra funding to increase the level of the pupil premium for primary schools to £1,300 per pupil compared with £900 in the current year. This 44% rise in the pupil premium is the largest cash rise so far. This should enable more targeted interventions to support disadvantaged pupils to be “secondary ready” and achieve our ambitious expectations for what pupils should know and be able to do by the end of primary education. We believe in early intervention because the greater the numbers of disadvantaged pupils that leave primary school with basic literacy and numeracy, the greater their chances of achieving good GCSEs.
We also want to treat schools fairly by acknowledging the performance of schools whose pupils achieve well despite a low starting point. We will therefore look at how we can introduce a reliable, robust measure of progress that we can take into consideration when holding schools to account. A school that does not achieve the attainment threshold will not be judged to be below the floor standard if its pupils are making good progress. The progress measure will also help identify coasting schools, whose pupils do not achieve their full potential. Ofsted will focus its inspections more closely on schools below and just above floor standards, and inspect schools with good performance on these measures less frequently.
We will continue to report on the progress pupils make during primary education. In order to measure pupils’ progress, we need to measure how each pupil’s end of key stage 2 test results compare with the results of pupils with similar prior attainment. Currently the baseline against which we measure progress is at the end of key stage 1. We could continue to keep the baseline at this stage. Alternatively, we could introduce a similar teacher-led baseline check early in reception, which would help teachers understand the stage the child has reached and allow the crucial progress made in reception, year 1 and year 2 to be reflected in the accountability system. Our consultation seeks views on which is the best option.
Finally, we recognise that teachers are professionals, and we want to give schools more freedom over the way they measure assessment. We have already announced that we will remove the current system of national curriculum levels and level descriptions, which imposes a single system for ongoing assessment and prescribes the detailed sequence for what pupils should be taught. This will leave schools free to decide how to track pupils’ progress. Ofsted will expect to see evidence of pupils’ progress, but inspections will be informed by the pupil tracking data which schools choose to keep.
The results of national curriculum tests, along with summative teacher assessment, will continue to be published. These provide important information for parents, governors, Ofsted, the wider public, and the secondary school where the pupil will continue their education. The Department will continue to use floor standards to identify schools which are underperforming.
I will place a copy of the consultation on primary assessment and accountability in the Libraries of both Houses.
Education
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Andrew Selous
To ask the Secretary of State for Education what steps he is taking to achieve gender balance in teaching in primary and lower schools.
[Official Report, 20 June 2013, Vol. 564, c. 797-98W.]
Letter of correction from David Laws:
An error has been identified in the written answer given to the hon. Member for South West Bedfordshire (Andrew Selous) on 20 June 2013.
The full answer given was as follows:
Mr Laws
The Government has made it clear that it would like to see the proportion of male trainees growing over time. The most recent Initial Teacher training (ITT) census in November 2012 showed a record number and percentage of male graduates entering ITT.
The proportion of qualified male teaching staff in nursery and primary (including lower) education increased from 16% to 19% between 2010 and 2011. Workforce figures for 2012 are not yet available.
In July 2012 the Teaching Agency (TA) launched the Primary Experience Programme, which allowed male graduates interested in primary teacher training to have 10 days’ work experience in a school. 1,000 places have been made available in schools across the country and the programme’s impact is currently being assessed by the National College for Teaching and Leadership.
The TA also regularly puts male graduates in touch with a range of inspirational male primary teachers, to get an insight into teachers' motivations, career choices, challenges and the rewards of day-to-day life in a classroom.
The correct answer should have been:
Mr Laws
The Government has made it clear that it would like to see the proportion of male trainees growing over time. The most recent Initial Teacher training (ITT) census in November 2012 showed a record number and percentage of male graduates entering primary ITT.
The proportion of qualified male teaching staff entering nursery and primary education increased from 16% to 19% between 2010 and 2011. Workforce figures for 2012 are not yet available.
In July 2012 the Teaching Agency (TA) launched the Primary Experience Programme, which allowed male graduates interested in primary teacher training to have 10 days’ work experience in a school. 1,000 places have been made available in schools across the country and the programme’s impact is currently being assessed by the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL).
The TA also regularly put male graduates in touch with a range of inspirational male primary teachers, to get an insight into teachers' motivations, career choices, challenges and the rewards of day-to-day life in a classroom.
Oral Answers to Questions
David Laws Excerpts(10 years, 10 months ago)
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Miss Anne McIntosh (Thirsk and Malton) (Con)
2. What assessment he has made of the likely effect of his funding proposals on rural schools.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Supporting successful rural schools is an important principle of our funding reforms. My Department has just concluded a review of funding arrangements for 2013-14, which included visits to North Yorkshire and several other rural authorities.
Miss McIntosh
Does the Minister accept that the pupil premium has not worked its way through to rural schools in perhaps the way he had hoped, and will he join me in helping North Yorkshire council to put in place fairer funding for rural schools, particularly those with many service children?
Mr Laws
The pupil premium has to be passed down properly to all schools, and before it existed, many young disadvantaged people were not getting any proper additional funding in many rural areas. My hon. Friend may wish to know that we also recently widened entitlement to the pupil premium to include pupils in families who had been entitled to free school meals at any time in the past six years. She will be pleased to know that as part of our recent funding review, we have introduced a sparsity factor of up to £100,000 that will allow local authorities to give extra money to schools in rural areas, and one of the big gaining authorities will be North Yorkshire.
Ms Margaret Ritchie (South Down) (SDLP)
Given that the Secretary of State has had meetings with devolved Education Ministers in Northern Ireland and Wales about other examination matters, will the Minister confirm whether the Secretary of State had discussions with them about the potential for rural schools, their potential closure and the need for them to be sustained?
Mr Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)
Last week, the chief inspector of schools said that Ofsted’s report on unseen children painted
“a striking new picture of disadvantage and educational underachievement”.
In his speech, he said that we needed new policies and approaches to deal with underachievement in rural and coastal areas. If those policies are to succeed, they will need to be financed. Will the Minister commit today to a redistribution to rural areas, so that allocations are fairer and more equal?
Mr Laws
We are committed to introducing a fairer national funding formula, and we hope to be able to say more about that once we are clear about the spending review announcements later this week. We also intend to ensure, through Ofsted and the accountability measures we publish, that schools in rural, coastal and other areas that may have small proportions of young people on free school meals or entitled to the pupil premium are still under intense pressure to narrow these gaps, which are as unacceptable in rural and coastal areas as they are in our inner cities.
Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)
A small village primary school near Melksham in my constituency has grown over several years to serve more than 200 pupils in seven classes, five of them in temporary buildings. Will the Minister ensure that through the targeted basic need programme rural councils such as Wilshire’s will get the help they need to meet the growing primary school pupil population?
Mr Laws
We will certainly do that. The Government are spending more than double what the previous Government spent on capital to support new school places, and as my hon. Friend indicated, before too long we hope to announce the results of the targeted basic need programme, which will enable new schools to be established in areas of basic need, as well as the expansion of existing good and outstanding schools.
Karl MᶜCartney (Lincoln) (Con)
6. What funding his Department is providing to local authorities to address shortfalls in primary school places.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
By the end of this Parliament, we will have made well over £5 billion available to local authorities to support the provision of additional pupil places, which is more than double what was provided by the previous Government over a comparable period.
Karl MᶜCartney
I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that answer. Does he agree with me that when we are dealing with a shortage of school places, the last thing we need is an assault on valuable teachers in the independent sector, who face being mummified with red tape to appease the vested interests of the Labour party?
Andrew Gwynne (Denton and Reddish) (Lab)
The National Audit Office projects that there is a 240,000 shortfall of primary school places across England, and in fact there are now bulges in classes across Tameside and Stockport, the two local authorities covering my constituency. Given that, will the Minister explain what proportion of capital spend has gone to address this problem in the areas of need?
Mr Laws
I certainly can. I can tell the hon. Gentleman that under this Government, the amount of money that has gone into funding basic need places has doubled in comparison with the amount available under the last Government. I can also say that the reason why there might be pressures at the current time is that the hon. Gentleman’s party removed over 200,000 primary places between 2003 and 2010—in spite of the warnings about higher pupil numbers from the Office for National Statistics.
Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)
The borough of Kettering has the sixth fastest household growth rate in the whole country, and the pressure on primary school places is getting more acute year by year. Will the Minister ensure that in his new funding formula, there is appropriate funding for areas of the country that are experiencing rapid population growth?
Mr Laws
My hon. Friend makes an excellent point because the Government are not only allocating much greater capital for basic need, but have changed the funding formula for distributing this money so that where there are pockets of basic need in areas that were previously not recognised, we are reflecting that fully in the distributions.
Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)
The Secretary of State was reticent last week when Sir Michael Wilshaw launched Ofsted’s report on closing the attainment gap for disadvantaged children attracting the pupil premium. Was that because Sir Michael Wilshaw advocated Labour’s proven policy of greater collaboration between schools to raise standards rather than the Secretary of State’s desire for privatised schools for profit of the kind that have been such a failure in Sweden?
Mr Laws
I do not know what the hon. Gentleman is talking about. This Government are encouraging schools to collaborate; this Government are encouraging partnership; this Government are promoting national leaders of education; this Government are going to introduce something that their predecessors did not—tables of similar schools so that schools can learn from each other.
Dr Phillip Lee (Bracknell) (Con)
7. What steps he is taking to improve the quality of children and families social work.
Mr Speaker
The hon. Gentleman may be keen to be a Minister, but he is not there yet, and I am in no position to appoint him.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
I apologise, Mr Speaker.
Local authorities are responsible for ensuring that there are enough school places to meet demand in their areas. The Government are committed to improving quality and choice through the expansion of the academies programme, university technical colleges and sixth forms, and through the opening of free schools.
Rebecca Harris
The Minister will be aware that Essex county council is currently consulting on proposals to close the Deanes school—most recently rated by Ofsted as “good” with elements of “outstanding”—in my constituency. Clearly, the loss of the school will greatly reduce choice for parents, so will the Minister meet me to discuss the options to try to resist the plans?
Mr Laws
In spite of my tardiness in rising to the Dispatch Box, I am aware of the situation at the Deanes school and of my hon. Friend’s robust representation, as always, of the concerns of her constituents. Although the matter is primarily one for the local authority, as she will understand, I would be delighted to meet her to discuss the issues on the ground, which I know are of great importance to many of her constituents.
Sir Bob Russell
The last Labour Government’s policies, which were backed by Labour in Colchester, would have led to the closure of the Thomas Lord Audley school. Thanks to the coalition, that school has been saved and is going from strength to strength. The Secretary of State will recall from his visits to Colchester, however, that there is still a question mark over secondary school provision on the Shrub End estate. Will he agree to meet a delegation from Colchester to see whether we can save that school, which Labour also wanted to shut?
Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)
Is my hon. Friend aware that 350 secondary school students in Harlow are eligible for free school meals, but because they go to Harlow FE college, they do not get them, whereas the kids who go to the one sixth-form school in the constituency do get them? Please will my hon. Friend remedy that anomaly and ensure that free school meals are available for all eligible students?
Mr Laws
We are aware of that long-standing anomaly in the system, and we want to fix it. However, such matters depend on the budget allocations that we are given by the Treasury, and these are obviously difficult times. We shall have to look at the situation after the announcement of the spending review settlement.
Mr Dominic Raab (Esher and Walton) (Con)
9. What plans he has for reform of the schools funding formula.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
The current school funding system is unfair, and is based on an out-of-date assessment of need. We have already introduced reforms to make the system simpler and more transparent, which will assist preparation for the introduction of a national funding formula in the next spending review period.
Mr Raab
I welcome that answer and that recognition. The current formula has arbitrary consequences in constituencies such as mine. Because a rising birth rate and other factors are not taken into account, parents living in areas like Claygate and Thames Ditton are struggling to secure local places. When will the review start, and what efforts will the Minister make to consult Members directly on the key issues and criteria that are at stake?
Mr Laws
I can tell my hon. Friend that the Secretary of State and I are committed to introducing a fairer national funding formula in the next spending review period, but we are currently waiting for the Chancellor of the Exchequer to announce our final settlement in his spending review statement this Wednesday. I assure my hon. Friend that we will engage in full consultation with all Members, including those who have particular interests in this area, as he has.
Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)
Pupils aged between 16 and 18 already receive significantly less funding than pre-16 and post-18 learners. Can the Minister assure 16 to18-year-olds that they will not suffer further detriment to their funding?
Mr Laws
We cannot make any comments until the Chancellor of the Exchequer has announced the spending review settlement later this week, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State and I are working hard to secure a good settlement for all parts of the education system, not just for schools.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
I welcome the Minister’s comments about the unfairness of the current national formula. Having met members of the Worcestershire Association of School Business Management last week, I can tell him that that unfairness is very keenly felt at present. May I urge him to do all that he can to ensure that we move towards a fairer national formula both before and after 2015?
Mr Laws
I assure my hon. Friend that we are taking these matters particularly seriously. We have had a very unfair national funding formula for many years, and, sadly, the last Government did nothing to address it. At a time when there are difficult decisions to be made in all areas of funding, it is especially important for underfunded areas to have a better settlement, because otherwise they will be the areas that feel the budget pressures most acutely.
Valerie Vaz (Walsall South) (Lab)
Joseph Leckie academy in my constituency has missed out on funding for all sorts of reasons. May I ask the Minister to make good the Secretary of State’s promise to send a Minister to visit the school?
Stephen Barclay (North East Cambridgeshire) (Con)
10. What steps he is taking to support young carers’ attendance at school.
Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)
11. What assessment he has made of the effect of the pupil premium on attainment of children from socially deprived backgrounds.
The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)
Results for 2012, the first year to reflect the impact of a full year of the pupil premium, showed a larger than expected narrowing of attainment gaps nationally for both key stage 2 and key stage 4. Further improvement is expected as the funding levels increase and schools focus more on evidence-based interventions to help disadvantaged children.
Alex Cunningham
That is very positive news, but schools are given a free hand to spend the pupil premium as they choose, rather than being required to target it on the most disadvantaged children who need the most support, and this comes at a time when the chief inspector is planning to get tough with schools that let poor children down. Will the Secretary of State get tough, too, and tell schools to concentrate these resources on the neediest children, instead of simply absorbing them into their budgets, as happens in some cases?
Mr Laws
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are not going to allow schools to use this money for purposes other than that for which it is intended. Schools will have to use this money for the assistance of the most disadvantaged pupils. We are not prescribing the way in which they do that, because, unlike the last Government, we believe head teachers and professionals should be respected to choose their own interventions, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that Ofsted will hold schools to account for using this money in the best way and narrowing the disadvantage gaps. If schools do not do that, they will face the consequences.
Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)
The two new academies in Hastings, the Hastings academy and St Leonards academy, were both rated 2 by Ofsted recently, which is a tremendous move forward for them. The Ofsted report particularly highlighted the fact that the pupil premium had made a great difference to the most socially disadvantaged. Would the Minister like to join me in congratulating the schools and their leadership?
Mr Laws
I certainly would like to join my hon. Friend in congratulating those two schools, and I do believe that the combination of significant extra funds—after all, next year the pupil premium will be more than £1,000 per disadvantaged pupil—with scrutiny by Ofsted will make a big difference to the opportunities for disadvantaged pupils in the future, and narrow the totally unacceptable gap between the opportunities for young people from advantaged and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Damian Hinds (East Hampshire) (Con)
Results for pupils from deprived backgrounds vary dramatically in different parts of the country. Will the Minister continue to ensure that Ofsted’s monitoring of the way in which the pupil premium is spent feeds through into strong, effective action, with a particular focus on the parts of the country where the gap between rich and poor is biggest?
Mr Laws
Yes, I can assure my hon. Friend that, in holding schools to account for the use of the pupil premium, Ofsted will be looking not only at the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged pupil performance in particular schools, but at the performance of disadvantaged pupils in particular schools versus the national average, and that it will also be looking at the progress that is being made, so that, whatever school a disadvantaged youngster is in, they can be sure that there will be scrutiny of those who run it, to make sure this money is used effectively and the gaps are narrowed across the whole school system.
Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)
12. What recent steps his Department has taken to improve careers advice and guidance; and if he will make a statement.