Education and Adoption Bill (Tenth sitting)

Flick Drummond Excerpts

Tuesday 14th July 2015 Public Bill Committees

[Kevin Brennan]

My hon. Friend is better placed than me to comment on the schools in his area and his constituency, but he makes a very valid point when he say that the size of schools should be taken into account when considering these kinds of interventions and approaches.

A big difference between the approach that we favoured towards coasting schools and the current one is that we proposed a comprehensive package of support to help these schools improve.

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

Why does a coasting school have to be bigger? Why cannot we have coasting small schools, medium-sized schools and large schools? What is the problem with the number of pupils at a school?

[Kevin Brennan]

Of course, it is perfectly possible for a small school or a school of any size to be coasting. The problem is that if we define coasting simply in terms of data, we know that data can be skewed when there is a smaller sample. It commonly happens that a relatively small difference, for example in the nature of the intake, can make a big difference in smaller schools to the result of an Ofsted inspection or the coasting regulation. The hon. Lady is right that any school might be in that category and we need a little more subtlety in the way in which we apply the data.

There is also the question, which we have discussed elsewhere, of what will happen to coasting academies. It remains to be seen where all the experts, heads and sponsors are to be found. More importantly, nowhere in the Government’s proposals is there any analysis of what will actually change in classrooms. Our concern was to focus on learning outcomes and approaches, rather than simply on structures. It was a serious attempt to address how to improve teachers and teaching and how to motivate and encourage pupils—and to have some resources to match that.

The initiative’s intention is laudable, but the execution is flawed. It is based on the Government’s view that change in structure is all that is needed. We do not think it will identify the right schools. We do not think it offers a proper analysis of why schools might be coasting or many useful suggestions about ways in which schools might be improved, other than the inevitable desire to force them to be academised.

Much of the Bill is less about action and more about seeming to act. Out in the real world it will make precious little difference, except to contribute more to the disillusionment that is so widespread in our schools, unless there is a better definition of coasting. I will quote Laura McInerney of Schools Week, who states that,

“if you truly want to find the real coasting schools then you wouldn’t begin with a definition, as is currently proposed until 2018, which protects those schools above a certain GCSE threshold. Instead, you would go after schools that have high GCSE pass rates and very low progress rates, just like the Labour plan suggested in 2008”.

Why have Ministers chosen to take this approach rather than an alternative approach, which truly would have identified those schools that the Secretary of State said she wanted to identify?