Birmingham Schools

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I salute the work of Prevent co-ordinators. Immediately after these concerns were expressed, Birmingham city council sought funding from the Home Office for an additional Prevent co-ordinator to work with schools, which my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary authorised. A Prevent co-ordinator from east London has now joined Ofsted to ensure that all Ofsted inspectors who deal with issues of this kind are trained to deal with the signs of extremist, Islamist ideology. I am, of course, more than happy to work with the hon. Lady and others to ensure that we augment the good work of those Prevent co-ordinators who have been successful in dealing with problems of that kind.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Secretary of State began by describing keeping children safe and preparing them for life in modern Britain as his Department’s central mission. Is he satisfied that he has the means to ensure that that happens, whether or not their school is funded by the taxpayer?

[Michael Gove]

That is a very good point. Today we have outlined that we plan to consult on independent school standards, so that schools that are not funded by the taxpayer must meet basic standards of promoting British values, or the Education Secretary will have the capacity to close them down. We are also taking steps to work with the Association of Muslim Schools UK to see what more can be done.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Thursday 10th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Fallon]

There has been a wave of investment in energy, not least the commitment last week by Siemens to invest £300 million in two plants on the Humber that will create 1,000 new jobs. We have seen a series of projects come forward for assistance under our renewables regime, and we will be running a capacity market later this year to secure more energy investment in four years’ time.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

The Budget invited universities and others to bid to develop the new Alan Turing institute for big data, an invitation enthusiastically embraced in Wiltshire and Swindon’s economic plan. How can we now work with the Minister to make this bright idea a reality?

[Mr Willetts]

My hon. Friend indeed represents an area with, shall we say, some very distinctive skills in cyber and big data, and yes, absolutely, it is very important that places like his have the opportunity to apply to have the Turing centre. We will be running a consultation on its best location.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

I admire good local authorities, and Hammersmith and Fulham’s is one of the best, so the decisions it quite properly takes outside the hon. Gentleman’s constituency and in that of my hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea and Fulham (Greg Hands) I would entirely support. As for creating a free school in Hammersmith and Fulham, why should a former public schoolboy such as the hon. Gentleman, who benefited from the independence of a great school such as Latymer upper, wish to deny such high standards to others? Is it that the hypocrisy—forgive me, the double standards—of the Labour Front-Bench team now extends to the Back Benchers, too?

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

17. What steps he is taking to ensure that academies and free schools are accountable for their leadership and corporate governance.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

Academies and free schools are subject to the same rigorous Ofsted inspection framework as maintained schools. Ofsted inspectors examine the impact of leaders at all levels and evaluate how effectively the school is governed and managed. The Education Funding Agency and our Department are also responsible for the oversight of academies and the free schools programme.

[Duncan Hames]

I thank the Minister for that response. Where both teaching staff and Ofsted, through these inspections, raise concerns about the management or governance of an academy or free school, what means are available to them to secure any necessary changes to both procedures and personnel?

[Mr Laws]

The first thing staff and others should do in those circumstances is to raise their concerns with the governing body. If they are not satisfied with that, they should not hesitate to raise concerns with either the EFA or our Department. We always take such matters extremely seriously. If my hon. Friend has any concerns about any cases in his constituency, he should feel free to raise them with me or other Ministers.

PISA Results

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. The chief inspector agrees with her, as do I. We are changing the way schools are measured in league tables in order to ensure that it is progress that matters, rather than simply raw attainment. Ofsted inspections are becoming more sophisticated, with more serving senior leaders conducting them.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

We see in these results that in the highest-performing countries children from disadvantaged backgrounds are more than twice as likely as similarly disadvantaged children in the UK to make it into the world’s top quartile in mathematics. Does that not demonstrate how necessary it is that we have the additional pupil premium money, ensuring that every child has a decent chance to get on in life?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The investment in the pupil premium, the investment in additional pre-school education for the most disadvantaged two-year-olds and a concentration on helping students who are falling behind in year 6 at the end of primary school to catch up—all policies championed by the Deputy Prime Minister and the Minister for Schools—are integral to advancing social mobility.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 11th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Laws]

It certainly is a good thing that under this coalition Government we are seeing a massive increase in capital expenditure on basic need: £400 million was the pitiful amount spent in the last year of the Labour Government. Between 2013 and 2015 we are spending £2.4 billion.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

5. What plans he has to ensure that all primary schools are able to offer free school meals to all infants.

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

My right hon. Friend the Deputy Prime Minister has announced that every child in reception—year 1 and year 2—in state-funded schools will be entitled to a free school lunch from September 2014. The Government will say more about the detail of the policy over the next few weeks.

[Duncan Hames]

That is a very welcome announcement. On Friday I visited St Mary’s school in Broughton Gifford in my constituency, which does not have kitchen facilities and is no longer in a position to offer its pupils hot lunches. Will the Minister ensure that sufficient capital funding is available to enable small primary schools that do not have kitchen facilities to provide hot lunches to all their infants?

[Mr Laws]

We are certainly ensuring proper capital provision. We have a proud record on not only basic need, but the amounts we are allocating for maintenance, free schools and other parts of the capital programme.

--- Later in debate ---

[Michael Gove]

Thank you. The hon. Gentleman is my hero.

As I have pointed out in speech after speech—I will send them to the hon. Lady—we must always seek to ensure that accidents of birth or circumstances never hold any child back. One of the great things about education is that children can constantly surprise us with their ability. To the historians on the Opposition Front Bench, I would recommend the words of my predecessor in my role as Education Secretary, Margaret Thatcher: advisers advise, but Ministers decide.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

T6. I welcome the Minister’s earlier commitment to healthy school lunches. Will he ensure that head teachers retain the autonomy to establish high standards in the provision of these lunches and are not, because of shared contracts, left at the mercy of one particular provider?

[The Minister for Schools (Mr David Laws)]

We will ensure that head teachers have proper flexibility and that they see the conclusions of the school food plan, which demonstrates precisely how head teachers and schools can not only deliver free school meals in the future, but do so in a way that ensures their high quality.

Oral Answers to Questions

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jo Swinson]

The hon. Lady is right to mention that the Prime Minister has shown a great deal of leadership on that, not least at the G8 summit in June, where he also said that he has a huge amount of sympathy with the idea of making that information fully public. I am sure she will appreciate that we are analysing around 300 responses to the consultation. I am certain that more information will be forthcoming to the House and beyond as we set out what we plan to do to introduce a register of beneficial ownership, which we have committed to do within this Parliament.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

12. What initiatives local enterprise partnerships are taking to support small businesses.

[The Minister for Skills and Enterprise (Matthew Hancock)]

The Government believe that local businesses are best placed to make the case on their needs. Local enterprise partnerships have consulted with small businesses to develop their strategic economic plans, which will help to give them access to the local growth fund and support skills, housing and infrastructure.

[Duncan Hames]

I thank the Minister for that reply and, while I am at it, for his support for investment in the further education college estate. Does he agree that, whether through the regional growth fund, Europe, city deals or local enterprise partnerships and the single local growth fund, supporting initiatives that help small businesses to grow and provide more jobs is critical?

[Matthew Hancock]

The Government are a passionate supporter of small businesses. The fact that 4.9 million businesses exist—a record number—is partly a response to the improvement in the environment for small businesses, supported by LEPs and the skills system, which we have done so much to put in place.

Teacher Training and Supply

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd October 2013 Westminster Hall

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

It seems to me that some factors that are relevant in anticipating the future demand for teachers may not immediately be apparent to schools considering their own immediate needs. Does the hon. Lady consider that perhaps we need some way in which those requirements could be factored into the demand for initial teacher training?

[Mrs Hodgson]

I agree, and that is why the unintended as well as the intended consequences of the programme need to be thought through. One unintended consequence is that if there is no initial demand, because the demand goes in another direction, universities will have to let qualified staff go, so the staff will not be there to pick up the slack in a couple of years’ time. How it will work in the short term, as well as the medium to long term, must be thought through.

Unless we get recruitment policy right now, there will be a shortage of not only primary school places, but secondary school teachers, especially given the number, which we are all aware of, of teachers leaving the profession due to their being completely demoralised by the actions and rhetoric of a certain Education Secretary. I do not think that universities are asking for too much when they ask for some certainty now. They accept that new schemes will come along from time to time, as we discussed, but like me, they rightly believe that the established route into the teaching profession—a route that has created the best generation of teachers we have ever had, let us not forget—will continue to be the preferred choice for many candidates.

No matter what the law says now, it is the responsibility of Ministers to ensure that those high-quality places are still available beyond the next election. I hope therefore that the Minister will listen to the concerns raised here today, and over the past few months by groups such as Million+, and ensure that his Government do not, as they are in the habit of doing, throw the baby out with the bathwater.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pat Glass]

I entirely agree. If the Government had attended to the warnings of the Select Committee in spring 2012 we would not be facing the crisis that my hon. Friend’s colleague and friend spoke about at the weekend. Since the Committee considered the issues it has been apparent that there is a worrying future for ITT in England, and for the future sufficiency of the teacher work force. The historical context is that every recent Tory Government has left office with a teacher shortage.

Some but not all School Direct places will offer an academic qualification such as the postgraduate certificate in education alongside qualified teacher status. However, accredited providers are accountable and responsible for the conferring of any academic qualification and QTS. In view of that, it is not surprising that students prefer to have an academic qualification including QTS from a university, rather than from a school, albeit one that is linked to a higher education provider. That is, if nothing else, an issue of status. All things being equal, what good maths graduate is going to choose school-based QTS over that awarded by a prestigious university? In that matter, I have some experience.

The problem is that Government policy is shifting funding from universities to school-led provision so quickly that, while universities may not be short of students applying for their teaching courses, they no longer have the funding to deliver courses of the quality and in the numbers that they have in the past. Universities are particularly concerned about the impact of the next round of ITT allocations on their ability to sustain teacher training. That includes the ability to sustain support for school-led routes such as the School Direct programme.

In 2013-14, as we have heard, ITT allocations and acceptances by Government have shifted by 25% to School Direct. More than 90% of postgraduate and undergraduate courses through universities were filled across the country and, in some cases, across subject areas, but only 66% of places allocated to School Direct have been met—well below the target allocation. In addition there has been over-recruitment in subjects including chemistry, history and PE, and that has masked much larger shortfalls in subjects such as maths and physics. Overall recruitment is 43% below target in physics and 22% below target in maths. The shortfall has been made worse because the Government have chosen to reduce allocations to HE institutions and universities, the bit in the system that we know works well and that has already been judged outstanding, while significantly shifting allocations to the School Direct programme, the bit in the system that is new, in many cases experimental and, as we now know, falling well short of targets. I understand that they have refused to shift the under-filled ITT places in School Direct to universities.

[Duncan Hames]

The hon. Lady mentioned the core allocation provided to higher education institutions. Bath Spa university, which provides ITT for many in my constituency, has outstanding status and therefore still enjoys some core allocation. Does she share its concern that, with changes in the Ofsted regime, the number of higher education institutions with a guaranteed core allocation will decline?

[Pat Glass]

I agree entirely. I and others in the profession are extremely worried that the next round of ITT allocations will result in some universities cutting back further, or closing their education departments as they become financially unsustainable. If that happens, an even greater burden will fall on school-led provision without the support of the higher education element that everyone recognises as vital to the provision of good teaching.

Like other hon. Members who have spoken, I cannot understand the Government’s insistence on employing unqualified teachers in schools. I have an MSc and I think that, certainly in the past, I was qualified to teach mathematics, but a working knowledge of maths and statistics does not make a teacher. Without the benefit of a Bachelor of Education degree, I would not have had the necessary skills and knowledge of child development. I would not have known how children learn, or about differentiation and delivering a syllabus to a range of abilities. I would not have known about assessment, or understood what each child could or could not do, and what they needed to do next. I would not have been able to manage behaviour in a classroom, or to identify and meet the needs of children with special needs. Probably just as importantly, I would not have had credibility, or the trust of my colleagues, the parents, and the pupils. Pupils know who is or is not experienced, and they can quickly tell who is qualified. Often that will determine not only their willingness to listen and learn, but their classroom behaviour.

The Government need to step back and consider their future allocation for ITT carefully. They run the risk of irreversibly damaging a system that has worked well and served us well, that has provided us with the best teaching force that the country has ever had, and that is internationally recognised as outstanding. To plough ahead regardless is to risk destabilising the whole system, damaging it irreversibly and leaving the country with yet another Tory-made teacher shortage.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kevin Brennan]

I certainly do. The distinguished former Chair of the Education Committee makes a powerful point. The mood music from Government is important too in whether teaching is regarded as a profession, and it is highly important that teaching, of all professions, should be. We have worked hard in recent years, including through the efforts of my hon. Friend and his former Committee, to raise the status of teachers to the point where we could say with confidence and Ofsted’s support that we had the best ever generation of teachers in this country. That is in danger of being undermined by the current Government’s approach to the issue.

On the current problems, we support and have supported the trend for student teachers to spend more time in schools. We started the support of Teach First when we were in government—to listen to the Secretary of State, one would think that he invented it—and we supported its expansion. However, the trend should be managed properly. The problem is that in their eagerness to propagandise and oversell the School Direct policy, the Government have abdicated their role in securing enough teacher training places, they are not ensuring an even geographical subject spread and they are destabilising university teacher training. We heard about the example of Bath, an institution rated outstanding in teacher training, is considering giving up its teacher training programme next year due to the uncertainty created.

[Duncan Hames]

I know that the hon. Gentleman did not find much to disagree with in my earlier remarks, but I certainly did not suggest that they were considering abandoning initial teacher training, although it is fair to remark that in its partnerships with schools, they rely on the talent that they can bring to its institutions with the certainty that their core numbers allow.

[Kevin Brennan]

I agree that the hon. Gentleman may not have said so, but they have said it themselves, in evidence to the Education Committee. It is on the record if he wants to check it.

We say yes to a diversity of routes into teacher training and a greater role in teacher training for good schools, but no to leaving the supply of teachers to the vagueness of an imperfect market, generating greater uncertainty and possibly leading outstanding higher education providers to close down courses. Will the Minister listen to the concerns, ensure that core allocation to good universities is sufficient, bearing in mind that they also supply support to School Direct partnerships, and give enough certainty to allow them to commit to future investment in teacher training? I am sure that, as an economist, he will understand the importance for future investment of having some certainty within the market. Will the Minister also make it easier, as my hon. Friends have asked, to transfer or vire allocations between different routes, so that good candidates are not turned away from teacher training unnecessarily?

School Starting Age

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2013 Westminster Hall

[Annette Brooke (Mid Dorset and North Poole) (LD)]

I am extremely pleased to have secured this debate. It follows from early-day motion 213, which I tabled in June, on the school starting age for summer-born pupils. The timing is particularly apt, given that most four-year-olds start their primary school education this week. A child born on 31 August 2009 will most likely be in the same year group as a child born on 1 September 2008. Indeed, I received information this morning that some three-year-olds—those born between 29 August and 1 September—have started school in an area where school re-started on 29 August.

The early-day motion notes

“the robust and consistent evidence from around the world on birth date effects, which in England shows that summer-born children can suffer long-term disadvantages as a result of England’s inflexible school starting age”.

To expand on such birth date effects, I will briefly refer to the Institute for Fiscal Studies report published in May. The study found that, relative to children born in September, those born in August are 6.4 percentage points less likely to achieve five GCSEs or equivalents at A* to C, and about 2 percentage points less likely to go to university at 18 or 19. It is staggering just how long term the effects appear to be.

Following the Rose review, the previous Government required local authorities to provide a full-time school place for all four-year-olds in the September following their fourth birthday. One could argue that that change tackled one problem faced by summer-borns—that they receive less time in formal education than their peers, which for some has a long-term effect on their school performance.

I argue that any such benefits are cancelled by the impacts on individual children who are simply not ready in their emotional, social and cognitive development to start formal school. A good nursery or pre-school can obviously help with school-readiness in some respects, but certain aspects of an individual child’s development can progress only when that child is ready. By definition, many summer-borns will not be as ready as their older counterparts. Furthermore, an unhappy experience may lead to behavioural problems and a lack of confidence and self-esteem as a child tries to cope within the school setting, and may therefore have further impacts on long-term achievements.

The statutory school starting age remains five. In principle, parents have a choice about which term their child starts school within that time span, but practice may be a little different. For many families, a child starting full-time school reduces the burden of child care costs. It is difficult to imagine that that would not impact on some families’ choices.

Where a parent chooses to defer their child’s entry to school, the child remains entitled to a funded early education place of 15 hours a week for 38 weeks, which prompts the question of the cost of any extra child care needed by working parents. There are also pressures on parents to do what is best for their child. A parent has to be confident and have full information if they are to decide to keep their child in nursery while others start school. Will the school and the local authority make sure that a school place is available part-way through the school year in an over-subscribed school so that parents can exercise their choice about which term their child starts school?

Over the years, I have received representations from across the country about parents who have struggled to be allowed to exercise that choice. I have asked questions and supplied details of cases, but I am not clear what the Department does to support parents experiencing problems in simply trying to have a place held open, so I would be grateful for clarification.

More recently, I have been contacted by parents who want to have the option of their child starting school at the statutory age, but in reception rather than year 1. It is pretty obvious that that makes sense for some children born at one minute to midnight on 31 August, and even more so for a premature baby born at that time. It is easy to extend that line of argument to include more children who would benefit from starting in reception class aged five.

I welcome the discussions between Bliss, parents and the Department for Education on schools admissions policy and that, as a result, new advice was issued in July. I congratulate Bliss on all its work representing families in which premature babies have been born.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

My hon. Friend is making a strong case, and I congratulate her on securing the debate. Earlier this year, I was fortunate enough to meet the Minister’s officials and Bliss on that point. I want to put on the record my thanks for the fact that, in answer 4 in that advice, the Government specifically refer to premature children who would have been in the lower age group had they been born when they were due. That is a welcome advantage for parents who are having such conversations with local admissions authorities.

[Annette Brooke]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. I not only congratulate Bliss, but I am grateful that the DFE has taken a big step forward. I particularly welcome the fact that the new advice states:

“There is no statutory barrier to children being admitted outside their normal year group”,

and that

“flexibilities exist for children whose parents do not feel they are ready to begin school”

in the September following the child’s fourth birthday.

The questions and answers provided in the advice on the DFE website are helpful, on the whole, but I particularly want to draw the Minister’s attention to answer 8, which states:

“Parents who are refused a place at a school for which they have applied have the right of appeal to an independent admission appeal panel. They do not have a right of appeal if they have been offered a place and it is not in the year group they would like.”

Parents may make a complaint, but the advice states that they cannot appeal. Surely, there should be a right of appeal. It seems to me that although there may be no statutory barrier to a child being admitted to a particular year group, there is no statutory right. That means that although some authorities work to help and support parents, others can continue to make it extremely difficult for parents to exercise a justified choice.

The other barriers that I have mentioned will also prevail—financial, in relation to child care costs; and parents’ confidence and empowerment in relation to requesting a different time of entry and possibly a different year group. I would be interested to know the Minister’s plans to monitor local authorities’ actions on the new advice, to promote best practice and to make sure that full information is available to parents.

I was contacted late yesterday—I have not had time to check this material, so I will refer to it only briefly—by someone who has looked at several London local education authorities’ admissions policies, of which 49% apparently did not conform to the new advice. I apologise that this is second-hand material, but it needs to be checked. It states:

“Admission Arrangements For…2014/2015—Request to delay entry to school (known as deferred entry). Parents of children below compulsory school age may defer their child’s entry to a Reception class…until later in the school year. However, a Reception class place must be taken up by the start of the summer term. If entry is deferred beyond the summer term, parents will need to reapply for a Year 1 place”.

That just shows that although the DFE has played its part, there must be follow-through if the system is really going to change.

In the case of premature births, I imagine that it will be possible to involve health visitors, as well as pre-schools and nurseries, and to use the new advice to secure a place in reception for a child aged five. I certainly hope that that will be much easier, but of course it will not be so unless all local authorities operate within the new advice, which is really important.

I want to mention one or two case studies. I need not give too many, because there are just so many and they are very similar. In a case of premature birth, a child born at 32 weeks struggled enormously with the transition to mainstream school after their parents’ application to delay entry to reception by a year was rejected by the local education authority. I also have a story of twins. The tragedy is that the parents felt that they had to put their children into the reception class. Sometimes the whole experience is of a totally broken down system. It is only when the children are withdrawn from school that it is accepted that they have to start reception in another school year. I am sure that everyone will agree that the experience of starting school and then being pulled out must be avoided.

Clearly, a lot of proactive work has to be done to ensure that the advice makes a difference. I repeat the question: how will the Department ensure that the questions and answers are promoted to admissions authorities and parents? That information should be available not just to those parents who are seeking information, but to all parents. Furthermore, there is a need to monitor published admissions policies.

I remain concerned about how a parent can succeed in exercising their choice when we are considering a child who is so immature, but not prematurely born, that he or she is not ready to start school until the age of five and then needs to experience a reception year. I want to hear the Minister’s views on this matter. What information does a parent need to supply to the local authority to provide a convincing case?

The advice given in answer 4 is far more open to individual interpretation than the one on premature births. It is quite likely that such a child does not have special educational needs as such—there is often misclassification. It is just that the child is not developmentally ready or mature enough at the age of four. By the age of five, they have simply had one year’s growth and maturity, and they need the experience in a reception class.

--- Later in debate ---

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are absolutely clear that parents should be able to say to a school, “We want our child, who is aged five, to enter reception”, if they feel that that is in the best interests of their child. That is what we are elucidating in the new guidance that we issued this summer and that is what we will be following up on with local authorities and schools.

One of the reasons why we issued the new guidance is that we felt that earlier guidance was misunderstood and that it was not necessarily clear enough. I also agree with my hon. Friend’s comment earlier about the “floodgates”. Like her, we do not think that the new guidance will open the “floodgates”; we think that it is about schools being responsive to parental needs and that there are not a massive number of complications in doing that. We want schools to be responsive to parental needs. However, only the parents of a limited group of children—those born between April and August—can lawfully delay entry by a full year. It is those children we are talking about in this debate.

I agree with what my hon. Friend said about the research evidence on summer-born children. We know that they have lower average attainment than their older peers. The attainment deficit decreases over time as they progress through the key stages, but it persists throughout their schooling. Absolute age is the dominant reason for that but it is not the only reason, and there is a statistically significant effect from the starting age or the length of schooling. That is why we want to give maximum flexibility.

I have mentioned the non-statutory advice that we issued on 29 July. We make it absolutely clear that there is no statutory barrier to children being educated outside of their normal year group and that it is unlawful for an admissions authority to have a blanket policy that children are never admitted outside of their normal age group. We make that very clear in the guidance.

I note from my hon. Friend’s comments that she feels that some of that guidance should be clearer, and that is certainly something we can look at. However, the new guidance is considerably clearer than the earlier guidance. We say that the following factors should be taken into account when making a decision about entry: the impact on the child of entering year 1 without having first attended reception class; whether a prematurely born child would naturally have fallen into the lower age group if they had been born on time; and whether delayed social, emotional or physical development is affecting the child’s readiness for school.

Of course, the guidance has just been issued—no doubt partly due to the campaign by my hon. Friend and her colleagues—and we will need to see how it affects behaviour and the level of complaints that we receive.

[Duncan Hames]

I very much welcome the new advice. The Minister will know from a whole spreadsheet of evidence submitted by one of my constituents, Mr Graeme Vousden, that before the new advice was published, local authorities across the country were thwarting the wishes of parents. Subsequent to the publication of the new advice, will she collect evidence to see whether the behaviour of local authorities changes as a result of it?

[Elizabeth Truss]

The Department will certainly want to look at that, to see what the impact of the advice is and whether further advice to local authorities is required. I know that the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole may seek a change to the statutory admissions policy itself, but I think that we should look at what the impact of this new advice is.

In general, what we want to do is to encourage flexibility and responsiveness to parental needs. There is a wealth of evidence about the importance of following a specific child’s development. We are trying to encourage that development through more flexibility over pedagogy, based in the early years and in school, so that teachers can adjust teaching practice according to where the child is in terms of their level of development. A combination of empowering parents about deciding which year their child joins school and giving teachers the flexibility to teach in the best interests of the child, rather than jumping through hoops in a particular year, will help to ameliorate the situation.

Such decisions are best made at a local level. We have been clear with local authorities about where their responsibilities lie, and about the fact that we want to see them being flexible and giving the parents the choice for their five-year-old child of joining reception or year 1. Having too much central guidance the other way would be wrong. What we need to do is to ensure that local authorities are absolutely aware of their responsibilities.

Pupil Premium

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[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.

National Curriculum

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Monday 8th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Michael Gove]

The hon. Lady raises an important point. One of the biggest problems in the English education system is the structural inequality, which we have inherited and which the previous Government worked hard, in their own way, to try to overcome. One of the things that is clear about those countries that have successfully managed to reduce educational inequality is that they have maintained high expectations for all students, and that is what this curriculum embodies.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State and his Ministers for bringing financial education into the school curriculum, following our campaign, so ably led by my hon. Friend the Member for North Swindon (Justin Tomlinson). Does the Secretary of State agree that, as well as better equipping young people for the decisions that they will make in adult life, the relevance of these questions may also improve their interest in and appetite for learning maths?

[Michael Gove]

My hon. Friend makes a typically acute point. The two things reinforce each other: an appreciation of financial education and mathematics and mental arithmetic all go together.