Primary Schools: Nurture and Alternative Provision

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Ben Bradley]

I thank the hon. Lady for her kind comments. I absolutely agree. Recent Ofsted proposals to look more at the holistic support within schools, and not only at academic results, are positive. However, that could certainly go further, and this kind of provision could be included in that.

Mansfield has some great examples of schools that work to provide nurture care for their pupils. I particularly mention Forest Town Primary School, which supports its most vulnerable pupils through a nurture group. That group is almost a school within a school, providing holistic care to help children engage with education early.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

Last year, I went round several Coventry schools. Some were particularly short of resources to employ what we might call specialist teachers, for kids who have special needs. We found the same thing in nursery provision in some of the most deprived areas in Coventry. I do not want to get too political, but does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government should try to address that somewhere down the line?

[Ben Bradley]

I agree. There is certainly a case to be made for specialist training and for changes to the way we train teachers, which I know from discussions with Education Ministers that the Government have touched on.

That Forest Town centre is a separate building on the school site, allowing young people who find mainstream education challenging in those early years to be in a quieter, more personal and supportive environment, and to slowly build up to the full experience. Some have special educational needs or challenging situations at home, but all are able to grow at their own pace with extra support. It is a bit like alternative provision, but it is on site and is therefore more flexible, allowing the children to move in and out of that mainstream setting and to have a space to call their own within the school. Equally, they are not excluded from their social networks in the same way as if they were sent to off-site provision. The teachers at Forest Town do a fantastic job, and their hard work and supportive care makes a huge difference to those children’s lives.

Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 12th February 2019 Westminster Hall

[Sir Vince Cable]

Indeed. In addition to the problem facing local authorities, schools in effect pay a £6,000 penalty. Many schools that were committed to inclusion now find that increasingly difficult and are shying away from their obligations.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. I fully agree with him about funding for special needs schools. Hereward College in Coventry has struggled with funding for a number of years, and does an excellent job. Another dimension is that children who have mental health problems often go home to a disruptive family life. That is not conducive to their education or mental health. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that something should be done about that?

[Sir Vince Cable]

Yes, I do. By mentioning mental health, the hon. Gentleman reinforces the point that I will go on to make. When we talk about special needs pupils, we are talking about significantly different classes of people with fundamentally different problems. Of course, they are all individuals, but we are talking about 1.2 million people altogether in the SEN system—up by about 0.5 million since 2014. About a quarter of them, according to Mencap, have learning difficulties. That actually understates the problem, because Mencap estimates that about 40% of children with learning difficulties are never identified at school.

About 120,000 children are on the autistic spectrum, which is the most rapidly growing and difficult group to accommodate. About 300,000 have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Others have a physical disability. I have had correspondence with those with visual impairment problems, who lack equipment, and other groups such as deaf children, who are not included in the SEN categories at all.

We are dealing with large numbers of very different categories of people, but what they have in common is that demand for EHCPs is growing rapidly: it has grown by about 35% over the four years since the legislation was enacted, which is about three times the growth of the school population. It is also three times the amount of funding available through the Government grant allocation.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

I notice the hon. Gentleman pointing his finger across the Dispatch Box. The Secretary of State is very aware—because I have not ceased to point it out to him—of the challenges that FE colleges face, and I did hear the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Toby Perkins) raise this in Prime Minister’s questions last week. It is good to hear people across the House talking about further education, because sadly the House collectively, including under the last Labour Government, did not talk about it very much.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

2. What recent progress his Department has made on the introduction of T-levels.

[The Secretary of State for Education (Damian Hinds)]

We are making very good progress. We are working closely with providers to deliver the first three T-levels from 2020 and have launched a £38 million capital fund to support that initial roll-out.

[Mr Cunningham]

I thank the Minister for that answer. I recently tabled a question and got an answer back saying there had been a 30% cut in adult education, particularly in relation to T-levels, as part of a wider effort to increase the numbers in adult education. What will the Secretary of State do about that, bearing in mind that Hereward College in Coventry, which teaches people with disabilities, and Coventry College badly need funding? Can he give us a positive answer on that?

[Damian Hinds]

The hon. Gentleman is a great advocate for further education in general, and for his colleges in Coventry in particular, and for the important role that adult education plays in social mobility and improving life chances. On T-levels, we are initially focused on getting the roll-out done, but we will look at adult provision in the future, and of course there was also a big boost in the Budget for the national retraining scheme.

Maintained Nursery Schools

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Thursday 31st January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Lucy Powell (Manchester Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that state maintained nursery schools are at the forefront of tackling low social mobility with 63 per cent graded outstanding by Ofsted, and 35 per cent good; further notes that two thirds of maintained nursery schools are located in the 30 per cent most deprived areas in England; notes that maintained nursery schools are recognised as being centres of excellence for supporting children with SEND in the early years; notes that the whole early years sector benefits from the expertise of maintained nursery schools acting as catalysts to raise standards in their locality through supporting schools and early years settings to work together to improve their quality; notes that despite welcome transitional funding the future viability of maintained nursery schools is under threat with 12 closing since 2016; notes the loss of transitional funding is equivalent to a 31 per cent cut in funding; and calls on the Government to safeguard the future of these vital early years institutions by guaranteeing transitional funding after 2020 as soon as possible whilst a long term plan to ensure their future viability is found by the Comprehensive Spending Review.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this important debate, and thank right hon. and hon. Members who have supported it, especially those who serve on the all-party parliamentary group with me as officers—the hon. Member for Cheadle (Mary Robinson) and my hon. Friends the Members for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) and for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips). I also thank the right hon. Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon), who could not be here today because he has a ministerial visit in his constituency. He is another primary sponsor of the debate.

I would also like to put on record my thanks to the Minister who will be responding to the debate and the shadow Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Tracy Brabin), both of whom have engaged thoughtfully and in a committed way with the APPG on nursery schools. I know that both of them share my commitment to the viability and sustainability of schools.

I want to put the Government and the Treasury on notice that we now need the warm words and commitment of the Department for Education backed up with the commitment of some real cash, which we need urgently. Our maintained nursery schools are some of the most excellent institutions in our education system. They transform lives, especially for the most vulnerable. They are what I often describe as the jewel in the crown of social mobility. Ofsted has judged 63% of them as outstanding, and the remaining 35% as good. That is nearly three times the number of private and voluntary nurseries rated as such.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on collating the petitions from various parts of the country. In Coventry the headteacher at Hill Fields nursery, Mrs Brinson, is always concerned about the inadequacy of funding, but more importantly about the fact that there are no guarantees beyond 2020. Does my hon. Friend hope, like me, that the Minister will rectify that when he winds up?

[Lucy Powell]

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. He is right. This is the key issue. It is about by when we need this funding commitment. I hope that the Minister will get a strong signal from the House that he can take back to the Treasury and get the commitment that we need.

College Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 21st January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr William Wragg (Hazel Grove) (Con)]

Thank you very much indeed, Mr Walker. As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on leading the debate, in which I am pleased to speak. I endorse the sentiments of the petition and put on record my support for the “Raise the Rate” campaign.

For a number of years, I have pressed the cause of increasing the schools funding budget—a topic I have often raised. It is important to remember equality for all students, both pre and post-16, for which the petition rightly calls. We need to look at ways to increase college funding to sustainable levels to give parity. The bottom line is that the sixth-form and college sector needs more money. That will give all students a fair chance, give college staff fair pay and provide the high-quality skills that the country needs.

This issue attracts significant interest among my constituents, of whom 130 have signed the petition. I have recently had meetings with Danny Pearson, the principal of Aquinas sixth-form college, which serves my constituency so well. I also know that the principals, teachers and students at other local colleges—Cheadle College, Marple Sixth Form College and Stockport College—are keen that urgent action be taken. They will be following the outcome of this debate closely.

Sixth-form funding was made subject to restrictions in 2011 and 2013. The national funding rate for 16 and 17-year-olds, which is by far the biggest component of the 16 to 18 funding formula, has remained frozen each year since 2013-14. As well as the funding disparity between pre-16 and 16 to 18 education, colleges face particular disadvantages in comparison with schools, which have their VAT costs refunded and receive the teachers’ pay grant. All sixth-form providers are being asked to do more by the Government, from implementing the Prevent strategy to meeting the Gatsby career benchmarks, but sadly those requirements are rarely accompanied by additional funding.

Taken in the round, the impact on colleges’ ability to deliver the quality of education that students deserve is significant. I fear that the situation is affecting the Government’s ability to achieve their ambitions for the economy and social mobility. Worryingly, it is also narrowing the curriculum: the funding impact survey carried out by Raise the Rate’s partners showed that 50% of schools and colleges have dropped courses in modern foreign languages, 34% have dropped STEM courses and 67% have reduced student support services or extracurricular activities, with limitations to mental health support, employability skills and careers advice.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner) on introducing the debate. As well as Coventry College, we have a special needs college in Coventry that does excellent work but is struggling financially and in its resources. In combination, they have faced cuts of up to about 27%. Does the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Mr Wragg) agree that that is a major factor affecting the quality of apprenticeships? Companies such as Jaguar Land Rover in the west midlands industrial base want to expand, but for that to happen, they need the skills.

[Mr Wragg]

I certainly agree. I am pleased to have afforded the hon. Gentleman the opportunity to place on the record the work of colleges in Coventry.

It is a timely coincidence that the Education Committee, of which I am a member and which my right hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) always chairs most ably, is conducting an inquiry into school and college funding and has taken evidence from the post-16 sector. When we asked what was at the top of their wish list, witnesses agreed that the first priority is higher core funding, the second is separate funding for increases to teachers’ pay awards and pensions, as occurs in schools, and the third is increased funding for the capital expansion of colleges.

We also heard that the college sector would much rather have a boost to core funding than a continued run of new initiatives. Some witnesses spoke of an initiative mania and suggested that narrowly targeted uplifts can do more harm than good, because they displace the real issue. For instance, plans to invest in technical education, although welcome, will do very little for the vast majority of sixth-form students who study an A-level or applied general course. I am afraid that more money for T-levels is not, in itself, the solution to sixth form and college funding.

To ensure that schools and colleges can continue to deliver high-quality, internationally competitive education, the “Raise the Rate” campaign is calling for the national funding rate for 16 to 18-year-olds to be raised by £760 per student at the forthcoming spending review and in line with inflation each year thereafter, as the hon. Member for Makerfield (Yvonne Fovargue) mentioned. Recent research has found that that is the minimum additional funding required to increase student support services to the required level, including improving students’ mental and physical health. It is needed to protect subjects that are at risk of being dropped, such as modern foreign languages. It will increase non-qualification time and extracurricular activities, work experience and university visits, which are vital for preparing students for the world of work or higher education and are key drivers of social mobility. Furthermore, it is important that the rate rise comes in addition to—not instead of—the funding that may be required by schools and colleges to meet new costs, such as increased employer contributions to the teachers’ pensions scheme.

I know that my right hon. Friend the Minister is a big supporter of the further education sector and wants the very best for pupils. We have seen that support take different forms; I am sure her winding-up speech will remind us about the new per pupil premium funding for level 3 maths, the £40 million of funding to establish centres for excellence in maths, and the investment in T-levels. However, I encourage her to go beyond those initiatives and ask the Chancellor for the desperately needed raise in the rate of core sixth-form funding. I can think of no better Minister to negotiate on behalf of the college sector, and I wish her well in the spending review.

Apprenticeships and Skills Policy

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Westminster Hall

[Judith Cummins]

That certainly is a concern for employers in my constituency.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend has mentioned that modern technology plays a major part. Does she agree that the restoration of the education maintenance grant would help students in relation to apprenticeships? Furthermore, cutbacks in further education do not help—it seems to be treated as a Cinderella industry.

[Judith Cummins]

I thank my hon. Friend for the wise words and I certainly welcome them. I say to the Minister that now is the time that we must act to create a better skills and training system if we are to prevent disruption further down the line.

Mental Health and Wellbeing in Schools

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 4th December 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this timely debate. Just before the 2010 general election, I introduced a Bill, which I discussed with the then education Ministers, that provided for somebody with medical knowledge, for want of a better term, to be available who would be able to spot mental illness, or other illnesses. In a way, that would have helped teachers as much as parents to do what would probably be called early intervention. Unfortunately, a general election came along, and the rest is history. Had that Bill passed, it could have been a great starting point.

[Layla Moran]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. He makes an important point, and I will get to what the Government are suggesting in a moment. I also add a note of caution: I do not think that we should over-medicalise being an adolescent. There is a grave difference between that and ensuring that there are proper services for those on the acute end of the spectrum.

Coming back to funding cuts, one of the best bits of being a teacher in my day was having time to get know the students, and develop a level of trust with them, very often after a class was finished, or during an after-school club. Those are the kinds of things that are going. There is pressure on teachers, with cuts to the number of teaching assistants and a narrowing of the curriculum. Teachers have to teach more lessons and do more prep, meaning that they have less and less time for that critical pastoral support. What are the Government doing to measure how pastoral support in schools—the time that teachers have to spend with students—is changing?

It would be remiss in a debate such as today’s not to talk about teachers. Mental health in schools is not confined to the children; there is a crisis among teachers as well. A report by the charity Education Support Partnership, including a survey of 1,250 education professionals, showed that a huge majority—75%—of the UK’s education professionals had suffered from either mental or physical health issues in the last two years due to work. Some 50% of those who took part in the study said that they had experienced depression, anxiety or panic attacks due to work, and the charity has warned that unless urgent action is taken over rising mental health problems, there will be a severe retention and recruitment crisis. We already know that that is one of the issues that our schools are facing, and it exacerbates all the issues that I was describing regarding pastoral care.

The impact of Ofsted on the mental health of teaching professionals also needs addressing. The way in which Ofsted operates under its current inspection framework drives the wrong kinds of behaviour in schools. I believe, and the Liberal Democrats have now made this party policy, that the brand of Ofsted is so broken in the teaching profession that it needs scrapping and replacing with another inspectorate that does that job. Critically, the job of school improvement must be separated.

I sit on the Public Accounts Committee, and in a recent hearing we heard how school improvement is being lost amid academies’ governance structures and the lack of services provided at local authority level. Representatives from the Department for Education could not definitely say that it was their job, and neither could those from Ofsted. The Liberal Democrats believe that it is time to have an arm’s-length body that focuses on school improvement for all schools, no matter their governance structure, and a separate inspectorate that does that specific job.

Further to that, we need to change the framework for school inspections. It should not just be about numbers. I am the school governor at a primary school. I sit on the performance and standards committee of that school, and it is all about numbers. We are reducing children to single numbers; we look at their progress but do not allow teachers the time to look at broader issues. We believe that we should have an inspectorate that looks closely at wellbeing in schools and measures that part of what a school delivers as critically as attainment and progress. Having said that, I welcome much of what Amanda Spielman is doing in terms of drawing together the issues in education, particularly where she has spoken about the narrowing of the curriculum and off-rolling. That role is vital, so I do not want that to be lost in today’s debate.

Another thing that I want to bring up is league tables. Early in my career, during my first couple of years of teaching, in the early 2000s, I was a fresh-faced, brand-new physics teacher and I absolutely adored my job. I went into a school where I lost my faith in the profession very early on. We were teaching GCSEs and all the science students had been put up on a wall and colour coded. This was when we had A to F grade. The reds were the ones who were never going to get to the C boundary, and the greens were the ones who looked as if they were going to pass. We were told in no uncertain terms that we had to focus on the middle group, who were coloured yellow. That did not make any sense to me. I thought that I should be able to focus on those who needed it the most. When I asked why, I was told, “League tables.”

What can the Government do about league tables? I am not saying that we should get rid of any of the data; we should publish it. However, on the DFE website one of the first things that people can do is click on performance tables data. They are then encouraged to compare schools in their local area. Comparing schools is not a bad thing; parents need to have the right information. However, it should not just be about numbers; there needs to be a full sense of what the school offers, including its extra-curricular stuff and its ability to deal with wellbeing and mental health issues. That is not what people get; they either get performance tables data, or a link to the school’s Ofsted report, which, as I just mentioned, is inadequate in that form. The Liberal Democrats have therefore said that we would stop the Government doing that, even if we cannot stop the press doing it. In Ofsted’s annual report, which was published today, Amanda Spielman noted that, shamefully, thousands of children are being let down by off-rolling. The off-rolling epidemic in schools is a direct result of schools’ desire to push up numbers. It is about numbers, not about the children, and that cannot be right.

The Government are fostering a culture of senseless competition among schools, in which results from a single set of narrowly focused high-stakes exams are the be-all and end-all. That is not good enough. Amanda Spielman wrote to the Public Accounts Committee in October about the narrowing of the curriculum:

“Where we do have clearer evidence of a decline in the quality of education are in the narrowing of the curriculum in schools and an endemic pattern of prioritising data and performance results, ahead of the real substance of education…schools must work to make sure that pupils leave school with the qualifications and examination results that set them up for future success…However, our research has found evidence that an overly data-driven accountability system is narrowing what pupils are able to study and learn.”

My worry is that rather than encouraging children to flourish at every turn in their lives—which can often be one step forward and two steps back; that is how life works—we have a curriculum that encourages multiple levels of failure. It starts with baseline testing as soon as children get into schools, moves on to SATs and continues with exam after exam. Every young person whom I have asked about high-stakes testing tells me that it has got worse and worse.

I was an experienced teacher before I came into Parliament, but I am still one of the youngest MPs. We have to remember that the school system that we MPs went through is not the same as the system that students are going through now. There is much more high-stakes testing in the curriculum now, and we have to stop it, so the Liberal Democrats have committed to getting rid of SATs. We are not saying that data is not important, but we can collect it in other ways. For the record, as a physics teacher I loved exams—they were great—but they do not have to be so high-stakes. They can be part of learning well; they do not have to be the be-all and end-all. I am seriously concerned.

Education Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Tuesday 13th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Angela Rayner]

The hon. Lady makes a crucial and important point. As I have said, I really think the Secretary of State needs to listen more to headteachers and to teachers across the board, up and down England, who are desperately trying to ensure that the funding is available to support all children. Under the previous Labour Government, every child mattered; under this Government, segregation matters.

The Secretary of State was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for West Lancashire (Rosie Cooper) if pupil funding was set to fall in real terms, and he simply said, “No”. The Institute for Fiscal Studies has found that per pupil spending will be falling again next year, so I give him the opportunity now to provide this House with the guarantee he once gave that not a single school will lose a single penny in per pupil funding. Unfortunately, his Government’s guarantees on funding have a habit of unravelling. The Secretary of State seemed bemused by my idea of segregation, and I understand why: the Secretary of State of course dropped the education Bill that would have brought in more grammar schools, but the Government are trying to do that themselves through the back door. The Government said that they would fully fund the pay settlement for teachers, but then offered less than the pay review body, for the first time in its 28-year history.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

My hon. Friend raises a very interesting point. The Government are not prepared to fund in full the recommended increase to teacher pay. They are leaving that to the schools to find, which is a further cut in school budgets. That means that schools cannot deal with special needs or assist pupils with special language needs in particular. Schools cannot employ those teachers any more—that is the mess the Government have left.

[Angela Rayner]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention. Of course, one of the myths that keeps being spread by the Government and Conservative Members is that record funding is going into schools, but they do not talk about the record level of costs on schools, which means that schools are facing real-terms financial pressures, and the Government have done nothing to support schools in that regard.

Despite the Secretary of State’s concerns four months ago, he has left 250,000 teachers—most of the teaching workforce—facing a real-terms pay cut. Meanwhile, teaching assistant wages are pennies above the minimum, even as so many of them have had to dip into their own pockets for basic school supplies. Austerity is not over for teachers or their support staff.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Monday 12th November 2018 Commons Chamber

[Anne Milton]

Yes, I can. The right hon. Gentleman perhaps ought to know that I have continued contact with my fellow Ministers in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, because this issue is important. We are not being rigid. There are ways around this, and I had a recent meeting to discuss exactly this point. It is important for the industry to get together and talk to the Institute for Apprenticeships, because there are ways around this.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

How can we improve the quality of apprenticeships when further education—or certainly Coventry College—has had a 30% cut? What is the Minister going to do about it?

[Anne Milton]

By 2020, there will be £2.5 billion available for apprenticeships. In fact, a lot of apprenticeship training is done by independent training providers, so I urge all further education colleges to make sure they get involved and take up the opportunity that the levy money makes available.

School Funding

Jim Cunningham Excerpts

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered school funding.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I wanted to keep the title of the debate broad because school funding does not have the same impact in all areas. We must continue to ensure that all our children get an excellent education regardless of where they live, and that all our schools have the money in place to provide that.

I am sure that hon. Members welcome the record levels of funding going to our schools. The simple facts tell us that, overall, more money is being spent, and that is a good thing, but schools are not feeling the effects of that increase. We must differentiate between the schools budget and the teaching budget: more money is being spent on education, but that does not necessarily filter its way down to the experience for all pupils and teachers.

Last month I met local headteachers and parents as part of a Fair Funding For All Schools campaign that has been going up and down the country, which colleagues may have seen. The overall view of the group was that we need more resources in our schools budget, but they were disappointed by the line repeated by the Government that more money than ever is going into our schools. Although that may be the case, the schools are not necessarily able to feel the effects of the increase, due to the ever-rising costs and additional financial burdens placed upon them.

[Mr Jim Cunningham (Coventry South) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Lady for giving way—I suspect that I will be the first of many to intervene. I have done a survey of a number of schools in Coventry. Headteachers tell me that they have a number of funding problems. For example, in Coventry they have probably lost something like £295 per pupil over the past seven years. I acknowledge that the Government have put £1.5 billion back in, but they also have a shortfall of about £3 billion from cuts some years ago. Does she agree—I doubt she will—that one of the big problems is the need for specialist teachers for children with special needs?

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman is pre-empting my speech; I will deal with special educational needs because they are of great concern.

If the Minister meets headteachers in Coventry or in my constituency, they may well tell him that the reality is that the current budget is not enough. Sian Kilpatrick of Bernards Heath Junior School told me that recently she wrote to parents to explain the financial squeeze that her school faces. Mrs Kilpatrick compiled a helpful list of all the additional things that she has to allocate funding to in order to keep her school running—I will not go through them all, but I am happy to share the list with the Minister. The things she outlined include: outdoor vital risk assessments, legal human resources advice, general maintenance costs and staff insurance payments. Those are just some of the additional costs that schools have to find money for. On top of that, she had to pay £8,000 to get her trees pruned.