Education and Adoption Bill

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Monday 22nd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Flick Drummond (Portsmouth South) (Con)]

I congratulate all those who have made their maiden speeches today, in particular my hon. Friend the Member for Telford (Lucy Allan), whose powerful speech made a big impact on me. I would have liked to talk about adoption, but I will concentrate on schools today.

I welcome the new categorisation of coasting schools. Having worked as a lay Ofsted inspector, I know exactly what those sort of schools look like: schools that are not stretching every child and are happy to just reach the minimum level. I have been rung up by parents asking me why their very nice primary school has been classified as inadequate, and why their great teachers were not doing as well as they thought they were. Schools would be classified as inadequate because bright children were getting level 4 rather than level 6, and other children were getting level 3 when they should have been getting level 4. It is these schools that have been classified as inadequate. They were not failing their children completely, but they were coasting and not doing a good job.

[Kevin Brennan]

The hon. Lady, a former lay inspector, raises a very interesting point. When she was inspecting a school, would she have been able to give it a good or outstanding rating, but still find it to be coasting?

[Mrs Drummond]

No, under the old system it would be a failing school if it was coasting. Nowadays, it would be seen as an inadequate school. In terms of terminology, coasting is much more acceptable to parents, teachers and schools. A school cannot be said to be inadequate when children are still learning to read, write and do mathematics but are not doing as well as they should be doing. That is how I see a coasting school, but I know we are going to develop this. I have some concerns about how coasting schools will be evaluated. The Secretary of State said that they would be evaluated on the basis of more data, but I should like that evaluation to be widened slightly to include Ofsted inspections. Perhaps there could be mini-inspections to ensure that all the data were available.

Let me give an example. We consider the school of which I am a governor to be a rapidly improving school, but its current level is “requires improvement”, and the local authority sent us a warning letter last year because we had missed the overall target by just 1%. It was the maths that had let us down. However, the children have made very good progress throughout their time at the school.

Nearly all the children arrive at a level that is well below the average, and a large number are eligible for free school meals. Last year we had several level 6 results, and many level 5s. One reason for our not achieving higher results was the fact that children covered by our autism provision were included in the results. Children with special educational needs find tests very stressful, and often do not meet national standards in any event. I should like to see much more provision for such children, whether they are included in the overall results or treated differently. I should also like to see a completely different system of assessing, in particular, children with autism. Other children arrived during the school year speaking English as a foreign language, and it is difficult for teachers to raise such children to national standards. I should like to see a much more holistic approach to the categorisation of schools.

There is a new curriculum and assessment system, and schools are still settling down and working out how the new levels—exceeding expectation, at expectation or below expectation—will operate. The Department needs to help schools with those new levels, which are still quite confusing as schools develop their own methodologies. It is right for them to be able to do that, but no clear national guidelines have been provided. The results of school evaluations often hide the true picture, and I ask the Secretary of State to ensure that they are fair.

I agree that schools must become academies if their local authorities are weak. Portsmouth City Council was deemed to be the sixth worst authority in the country in this context, and during the 10 years the Liberal Democrats were in control, there was very little political will to improve educational standards. That has begun to change over the past year, under the new Conservative administration.

In many instances, when Portsmouth schools have become academies, children’s education has improved. I mentioned the Charter Academy in my maiden speech. In five years, its GCSE pass rate has risen from 3% to 85%. The local authority wanted to shut down the school, which is in an area of great deprivation, but fortunately the old head teacher saw its potential and brought in Ark Schools, which I consider to be one of the pinnacles of academy provision. I am pleased to learn that it has recently taken on some primary schools in Portsmouth as well. I recently visited Ark Ayrton with my hon. Friend the Minister for Schools. The head teacher of the primary school that it took over was extremely reluctant to allow the school to become an academy, but was forced to do so. She now says that it was the best thing that she could have done, that she wishes that she had done it a long time ago, and that she is receiving incredible support from Ark. Ark Dickens has taken over another school in my constituency—again, in an area of great deprivation—and I look forward to seeing a difference in children’s education there.

I have spoken before, outside the House, about the poor performance of my local authority. I agree with the National Union of Teachers that it should be the job of local authorities to assist schools, but where they are failing, we need an alternative, and free schools are providing that alternative. I am grateful to academies for giving some of the children in Portsmouth the education that they deserve, along with aspiration and the tools that will enable them to realise their ambitions.