Educational Attainment: Yorkshire and the Humber

Jo Cox Excerpts

Monday 18th April 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jo Cox (Batley and Spen) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House notes that Yorkshire and the Humber was the lowest ranked region in England in 2013-14 for educational attainment; further notes that the January 2016 report from the Social Market Foundation entitled Educational Inequality in England and Wales found that geographical inequality was the most important factor in determining students’ educational attainment; and calls on the Government to take action to address the underlying causes of these inequalities as a matter of urgency and to set out the steps it is taking to ensure that children in Yorkshire and the Humber are equally likely to achieve good school qualifications as children in London.

First, may I thank the Members who made this debate possible this evening? For too long, attention has focused narrowly on socioeconomic inequality in determining academic achievement. We now know, however, that it is not just the relative wealth of parents that holds back the potential of our children—it is also where they live. New research in January by the Social Market Foundation found marked disparities in GCSE performance between the regions, with more than 70% of pupils in London achieving five good GCSEs compared with just 63% in Yorkshire and the Humber. These regional differences in attainment are already apparent by the end of primary school, and they are evident even when we account for other factors such as ethnicity and income. Furthermore, if we compare the performance of 11-year-olds born in 2000 with those born in 1970, it is clear that where someone is born has become a more powerful predictive factor of their performance at school than any other. Yorkshire and the Humber are a stark example of that. Tragically for our children, the region has gone from fifth lowest achieving in the 1970s to the worst in England today, with nearly a quarter of pupils attending schools that are rated less than good. That is despite the tireless effort, dedication and commitment of the headteachers, staff, parents and children across our great region.

As schools across Yorkshire and the Humber struggled, in London, with the targeted support and investment of the London Challenge, attainment surged. Indeed, according to the Government’s Social Mobility and Child Poverty Commission, London and the south are now pulling away from the rest of the country. This disparity is a disgrace, and education has become a postcode lottery. After 30 years of neglect and a lack of focus from Government, we now live in a country where a child in some regions has less chance of reaching their potential than one born in London. As London powers ahead in educational attainment, children in the so-called northern powerhouse are falling behind.

There is of course no silver bullet to improve educational attainment in our region overnight, but all the international evidence tells us that the key to a successful education system is the quality of its teachers. Evidence from the Sutton Trust and the London School of Economics shows that if we were to raise the performance of the least effective teachers in our schools just to the national average, England would rank in the top five systems in the world for reading and mathematics. Yet instead of taking action to support the profession, the Government have presided over a shocking teaching crisis. For four years, they have missed their target for recruiting trainees. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of teachers leaving the profession increased by 11%, which means that one in 10 schools is having to resort to using unqualified staff in the classroom. Instead of ensuring that every classroom has a world-class teacher, as Labour promised to deliver in its last manifesto, this Government remain obsessed with relentless tinkering of the curriculum and never-ending structural upheaval. As one of my local headteachers said to me last Friday:

“It is time to stop beating teachers and start giving us the support we need to do our job.”

The evidence is now so compelling about this gulf in regional attainment and the crippling impact it has on individuals, communities and the economy that it is time for a revolution in how we tackle the problem.

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend for giving way and congratulate her on securing this debate. Does she not agree that one of the problems we face, particularly in our post-industrial towns, is that we do not have the global companies on our doorsteps from which our children can get work experience and other opportunities? It does not matter what type of housing people live in or what the challenges are, those opportunities are on offer to the children of London, but not to our communities in Doncaster and elsewhere in Yorkshire.

[Jo Cox]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her incredibly insightful comment and I could not agree more.

More generally, in Yorkshire and the Humber, children are now being left behind, and no child should be left behind. We can no longer accept that young people in London are far more likely to achieve good outcomes at school than those in other regions.

[Graham Stuart (Beverley and Holderness) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is making a powerful case and her point about the gap between Yorkshire and London is valid. She cites the evidence, but will she join me in agreeing that having 1.4 million fewer children in underperforming schools is a significant national improvement, although, as we will be discussing tonight, we need to ensure that that success is everywhere and not just concentrated in some areas.

[Jo Cox]

I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s expertise and knowledge on this issue. He is right to identify the fact that we need to spread the successes across the country, not just in some bits of our great nation.

It is morally right that we act urgently to address the inequity and it is an investment that will resonate far beyond individuals. Improving educational attainment in Yorkshire schools is central to the success of the so-called northern powerhouse. Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector of schools, says that more attention must be focused on regions where too many schools are “languishing in mediocrity” and that the northern powerhouse will “splutter and die” unless underperforming schools improve. To that end the Budget contained vague details of the Government’s new northern powerhouse schools strategy, which admits that

“progress in education isn’t felt everywhere.”

However, there is only very limited information about how the money will be spent and no clarity on where exactly the north is. Furthermore, £20 million is a paltry gesture when we think about the scale and importance of this crisis—particularly when only £10 million will be spent this year. The recent recalculation of the International Democratic Education Conference index on levels of deprivation had a severe impact on many schools across my local authority, Kirklees, with one school, for example, losing £300,000 per year.

The region needs real investment, not just rhetoric. We also need to learn the many transferable lessons from the success of London. In the 1980s, the south-east and the east of England had better results than London, but the most recent evidence now shows that London is outstripping the rest of the country. The Labour Government’s London Challenge saw the combination of a political push and huge investment to raise standards across the capital. With the long-term backing of Downing Street, the Challenge focused on three clear and measurable objectives: to reduce the number of underperforming schools, especially in relation to English and maths; to increase the number of schools rated “good” or “outstanding”; and to improve educational outcomes for disadvantaged children.

[Diana Johnson (Kingston upon Hull North) (Lab)]

I am pleased that we have the opportunity to debate this important issue this evening. One thing that I learned from the London Challenge, which is key to all this, was the co-operation and the co-ordination among schools across the capital. Rather than being set against each other in different schools, teachers came together and worked in a co-operative model. That is the best way of sharing good practice and building capacity.

[Jo Cox]

My hon. Friend’s point is valid and offers a stark contrast to current Government education policy.

[Rachael Maskell (York Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

York, which has the best results of schools across Yorkshire, also has the York Challenge, but it is co-ordinated by the local authority. Is that not why it is crucial that the local authority is at the heart of our education system in the future?

[Jo Cox]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I fear that the Government are trying to take the heart out of local authority support for education, and there is no evidence that such a strategy will improve standards.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson) said, a key element to the success of the London Challenge was a focus on leadership and support for teaching and learning. In supporting leadership in that way, clusters of schools were established and encouraged to work together. Headteachers from good and outstanding schools were chosen as “consultant heads” who could share experience and expertise with others in the area. The language and ethos of the London Challenge were positive. A highly experienced advisory team provided tailored support for each school and local authority, but at the heart of the London Challenge was collaboration, which sits in stark contrast to current education policy. The Government’s plan to force schools to become academies is perhaps the most blatant example of that policy. Instead of enhanced local co-operation, we will, I fear, see schools existing in an increasingly competitive environment—on recruitment, admissions and salaries. As one local headteacher said to me:

“There is collaboration already. We have natural partnerships where geography is key. Academisation potentially shatters years of trust and joint working.”

I supported the original purpose of academies in the provision of much-needed, targeted support for failing schools, which has in many cases transformed children’s lives, especially in London. However, as the evidence shows, the reality of academies is that they are neither inherently good nor bad and thus should not be bluntly imposed on all schools.

The Government simultaneously want to erode a key source of support in the education system—local authorities. As Conservative Councillor Roy Perry notes:

“Ofsted has rated 82% of council-maintained schools as good or outstanding, so it defies reason that councils are being portrayed as barriers to improvement.”

There is no compelling evidence that dismantling the role of local authorities in this regard will improve educational attainment. What is more, evidence from 2009 showed that English schools were already the third most autonomous in the world, yet were still ranked 23rd in terms of global pupil performance.

So instead of fixating on school governance, the Government need to ensure that schools have the tools they need to do the job. This means ripping up their flawed proposals for academies and focusing instead on key issues, such as teaching standards and recruitment. As the chief inspector of schools has noted:

“We’ve seen a significant difference in the quality of teaching between the South and the Midlands and the North”

and a significant difference in the quality of leadership. Yet we know that the surest way to improve our children’s attainment is by raising the standards, standing and status of teaching in our schools.

We need to be much more ambitious about improving teaching, dealing with teacher shortages, ending the use of unqualified teachers in our classrooms, and tackling low pay, which deters far too many good young teachers from going to and staying in the toughest schools. We know that there is an emerging two-tier system where some schools are more able to recruit good teachers than others. It is surely time to look at financial incentives to encourage trainees to move to and work in those regions that most need their talent. To this end, the new National Teaching Service, which will see 1,500 of the country’s top teaching talent matched to the schools that most need them, should be accelerated urgently. Currently the service does not go far enough, with the aim of only 100 teachers to the north-west by 2016.

Teach First should work far harder to expand beyond London, where it sends a whopping 40% of its teachers. It is time to ensure that training is not overly concentrated in London, which has huge cost and time implications for teaching staff based in remote and rural areas, excluding many from this vital opportunity to learn.

I recognise that the answers to these problems will not be found easily, but surely the growing divide in regional academic attainment can no longer be left unchallenged. Indeed, I contend that nothing we do in this place matters more than ensuring that no child is left behind. If education, education, education is a priority, the answer must, in part, be teachers, teachers, teachers. What has worked in London can work elsewhere. It can work in Yorkshire, but it will need real investment and sustained political commitment. It is time for a new, bold and ambitious target to end the postcode lottery in educational attainment. We have a duty to ensure that every child has access to the best possible education. It should not matter where they were born. No child should be left behind.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

Yes, I very much agree with my hon. Friend, who makes a good point, as he always does on education matters.

I emphasise that we have some fantastic schools and some fantastic teachers, who are all working incredibly hard. I am very pro-teacher. My dad is a retired teacher, so I will certainly not criticise them; they work very hard in sometimes very difficult circumstances. I am not often a big fan of all the teachers in the National Union of Teachers, but teachers on the whole work incredibly hard, and it is important that we do not criticise them when we are discussing some of these educational standards, because they often operate in very difficult circumstances.

Finally, I was struck by the good point the right hon. Member for Don Valley (Caroline Flint) made about opportunities being harder to come by for people in the north than for those in places such as London, and I would like to float an idea. We often give student loans to people who want to progress their career through the university route; I wonder why others, if university is not for them, should not be able to get some form of student loan to allow them to do things such as come to London to access work experience placements. I do not see why student loans should be only for the benefit of the most able and perhaps the wealthiest and most advantaged. How about giving loans to some of the most disadvantaged people in the country to allow them to pursue their career? How about giving people in Yorkshire the opportunities that people in other parts of the country get? I hope that the Government will look at that. Social mobility is what the Conservative party should be all about, and we have to look much more imaginatively at this issue.

[Jo Cox]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Philip Davies]

I am going to finish; otherwise, Mr Deputy Speaker will get annoyed with me, and I do not want that to happen.

I hope that the Conservative party, which I believe is about social mobility, will look more imaginatively at what we can do to help kids from poorer backgrounds who are perhaps not the most academic to access the best opportunities. I would like to think that student loans could be extended to them for their benefit.

[Dan Jarvis (Barnsley Central) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) on securing this important debate. This issue is important for a number of reasons. First, unless we address the regional disparities in educational attainment, this country will continue to become more divided. Secondly, that attainment gap wastes the talent of young people in our communities.

I pay tribute to the great work going on in Barnsley. Fantastic people across our community are working incredibly hard to give our young people a bright future and to help close the attainment gap. I am thinking of people such as Chris Webb and his great team at Barnsley College, which is rated outstanding and ranks as one of the best further education colleges in the country. I am also thinking of our great headteachers, including Kate Davies, Simon Barber, Dave Whitaker, Nick Bowen, Diane Greaves and Paul Haynes, and of great teachers such as Mat Wright, who I met during the Easter recess at the Barnsley teaching and learning festival. They are people with great passion for improving the lives of young people in Barnsley.

Teaching is a hugely valuable form of public service, but we all know that huge challenges come with it. In Barnsley, less than a fifth of pupils on free school meals get five A to C grade GCSEs. That damning statistic represents a massive waste of talent. I know that the young people in Barnsley do not lack talent. I think of the young people I know in the Barnsley youth choir; the young people I have met who are involved with the community work of Barnsley football club; and the young people I meet when I visit primary schools in my constituency who have the most curious minds and often ask the most brilliant and challenging questions. It is clear when I meet these young people that they are being failed, and the talk of how prosperous Britain has become and how well things are going simply rings hollow to those young people who are being failed by the system. I want to address three areas where progress needs to be made if we are to change that, namely poverty, aspiration and leadership.

First, I recently wrote a report on child poverty that found that more than one in five children in my Barnsley Central constituency grow up in poverty. There is no doubt about the crippling effect that poverty has on educational attainment. Poverty is a complex and difficult issue to solve, but some of the Government’s measures over the past six years have contributed to children in my constituency remaining in or falling into poverty. I fear that the Government’s approach has best been represented by their ambivalence towards independent evidence that the Government’s policies are hitting the poorest hardest.

Bold and practical measures can be taken to reduce child poverty and boost educational attainment. For instance, we know that promoting the bonds between parents and children in their early years not only leads to happier and more prosperous lives, but saves considerable future spending on the cost of family failure. At present, the Government spend too much money dealing with the symptoms of the problems. Our priority should be to shift spending to investing in preventing the causes of social problems. By shifting resources to targeted early years intervention, we can help tackle the root causes of social and emotional problems among children and young people.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Mr Allen) has done great work in that area, and the cross-party manifesto, “The 1001 Critical Days”, sets out a policy framework from the period of conception to the age of two, because services and children’s centres need to be co-ordinated in a whole-family approach, working with all members of a family involved in the care, education and health of a child. Louise Casey’s troubled families programme has been pioneering that approach with success.

Secondly, poverty in my community is often intrinsically linked to poverty of aspiration among young people. In Kingston upon Thames, many children are the sons and daughters of barristers, surgeons and media executives, but in Kingstone in Barnsley, children are more likely to be the sons and daughters of barmaids, cleaners and call centre workers. When they are growing up, too many children in Barnsley do not comprehend the opportunities that could be available to them. They do not know that they are this country’s talent of tomorrow. Raising aspiration will not be an easy task, but better careers education and career guidance are clearly part of the solution.

The recommendations of the Gatsby Charitable Foundation’s “Good Career Guidance” report should be looked at more closely. It states:

“Every school and college should have an embedded programme of career education and guidance that is known and understood by pupils, parents, teachers, governors and employers.”

I could not agree more, but we are still some way off that goal.

[Jo Cox]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful, well informed and passionate speech. Does he agree that, unless we tackle some of the regional differences that hold back children in constituencies such as his and mine, any talk of rebalancing the economy will lead to nothing?

--- Later in debate ---

[Caroline Flint (Don Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers). In different but similar ways, we share some of the same challenges when it comes to offering our young people and children ambition for what they can achieve, as often they do not have it locally on their doorstep to reach out and touch. That is such an important part of children’s aspirations—whether they can see themselves in some of the jobs that others take for granted. If one school in Don Valley ended up with half a dozen Cabinet members, people would say it was a conspiracy rather than just an opportunity given to some.

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Batley and Spen (Jo Cox) for securing this debate. I have been an MP living in Yorkshire and serving a Yorkshire constituency for almost 19 years. I also speak as a mum, as my children went to local schools in Doncaster. When I was a new MP in 1997, I remember there were dilapidated primary schools with outside toilets. It has to be said that the loss of jobs in mining and manufacturing cast a long shadow over children’s potential. Back then, it cut me to the quick to hear a headteacher question whether it was worth introducing computers to schools, as the jobs that used such skills were beyond pupils’ expectations.

It is of huge concern to me that, as well as my region having a high percentage of young people who are not in education, employment or training, Ofsted states that my region

“lags behind the rest of the country in its task to prepare young people for the future.”

As my hon. Friend said, Yorkshire and the Humber has slipped over the decades from a hardly inspiring seventh out of 10 regions in 1970 to 10th out of 10 in 2013-14. In decades gone by, when manual jobs were plentiful, a 16-year-old could go straight from school to work without any or with only a few qualifications—it may have been to a low-paid job, but it was probably a job for life. That world no longer exists. There were better paid volume jobs in one industry that dominated the town economically and socially. We need the Government to understand post-industrial towns in Yorkshire and the north of England such as Doncaster—towns that globalisation seems to have passed by.

Education is a life-changing force. I know: it was for me. Too many children from backgrounds like mine—from ordinary working-class families—have no expectation of going to university or learning beyond 16. As someone who never knew my father and was the child of an alcoholic mother, school was all too often my refuge, a world I could embrace, from the subjects I loved to the activities such as sport, music and drama. By the time I was 18 I had lived away from home twice, during my O-levels and A-levels. Without doubt, my comprehensive girls’ school altered my path in life. It raised my aspirations, and, after attending one of the country’s first tertiary colleges, I went to university.

London and the south-east have seen results improve in recent years, but it is clear that Yorkshire and the Humber has, as Ofsted bluntly puts it, “persistently underperformed”. The truth is that the problem starts before children start school or even pre-school. Postcodes are a factor, but parents are the most important influence on their children. They shape their world, making many decisions—or not—every week that will have an impact on their child’s development. There is no such thing as a perfect parent, but confident and engaged parenting makes a difference.

The Government have continued a policy that started under Labour by offering free additional pre-school hours for two-year-olds; the offer is available for looked-after children, disabled children and children from disadvantaged backgrounds. With the last group, I wonder what the parents are doing while their child is in nursery. That time would seem to be an ideal opportunity to support the parents in whatever activity is likely to help them and their child’s start in life. I understand that the take-up has not been as good as expected, and we must ensure that its provision and cost is making a difference.

Louise Casey is an old friend of mine, and I worked with her to tackle antisocial behaviour, and on the Respect programme, when I was a Home Office Minister. Social inclusion, family intervention, troubled family programmes—whatever the title under different Governments over the past 20 years, it is recognised that during the early years it is crucial to offset negatives with positives where we can. We must address how well early years or family interventions are working in and out of school. How can we share best practice and break down the barriers and the silo thinking that still exist among partner agencies?

Comparisons with similar neighbourhoods are another good way to show what can be achieved and leave no room for excuses. In 2015 in Doncaster, one in three children attended primary schools that were neither good nor outstanding. In Barnsley, however, 81% of pupils are in good or outstanding schools. I am pleased that Mayor Jones recognises the importance of leaving no child in Doncaster behind, and we are backing an education commission to address why Doncaster is at the bottom of the attainment league table—hard questions need to be answered. So much of education is out of the hands of local authorities, so who do I or concerned parents turn to apart from a regional schools commissioner?

For many children the move to secondary school is a key transition in which they either sink or swim. How hard must it be to move to year 7 if by age 10 or 11 a child cannot read and write well enough to cope, and ends up being pigeon-holed when long-term choices are made at 14? The Government should seriously consider earlier intervention, or even delaying the move to key stage 3 until every effort has been made to turn the situation around for those children.

As with primary schools, secondary schools in Doncaster must make more progress, with just over a third of students attending a good or outstanding school compared with 79% of pupils in Sheffield. The Government need to understand some of the difficulties that towns like Doncaster face. Not enough schools offer 14-year-olds diversity and a quality vocational equivalent to a more academic path. Short of modelling schools on the German system—I would prefer that to a grammar school system—I see no other way than expecting schools and other learning providers to collaborate to ensure that positive choices are not undermined by bad timetabling or lack of transportation. However, I cannot see that happening in the current fragmented environment.

[Jo Cox]

My right hon. Friend is making an incredibly powerful and personal speech, which is a testament to her desire—and that of many children—to get on and achieve great things. Does she agree that although constituencies such as hers and mine, and many across Yorkshire and Humber, need specific localised interventions, that goes directly against the centralising competitive tendencies of this Government in education policy?

[Caroline Flint]

I agree with my hon. Friend. We cannot have everything defined by Whitehall, even in the shape of a regional schools commission, which is basically what this is.

The recent area-based review of further education colleges in South Yorkshire seemed to happen in total isolation given what was happening in school sixth forms, which makes no sense at all. A number of businesses are engaged in our schools, but I will return to what I said earlier: London has its challenges but it has its opportunities too. As an avid reader of the Evening Standard, I am jealous of the corporate and individual resources that have backed the various campaigns to get London reading, or get young people on apprenticeships. If someone wants to become an intern or gain work experience, whatever housing they live in, being in London has huge advantages—on that issue I have common cause with the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). Provincial towns such as Doncaster and many others have to fight much harder to provide anything similar to transform young people’s aspirations.

We may have more teachers than ever before, but they are not always the right teachers in the right places. The Government have failed to meet their own recruitment targets for four years—that was recently investigated by the Public Accounts Committee. One primary headteacher told me that a recent job advert she posted online joined 35 other adverts for primary school teachers locally. A secondary headteacher told me that another school in the region was offering a starting salary that they could not compete with, in order to hold on to an excellent Teach First graduate.

Because teachers do not have the same terms and conditions at academy schools, that can result in a form of poaching that does not help the schools that need the best teachers to get them. It does not surprise me that it is easier to recruit newly qualified teachers in big cities, because—let us be honest—they are often more exciting for young professionals than some of our towns. I want the Government to consider those barriers and seek to get more good teachers to our provincial towns where the need has been identified. The Government could recognise those shortages, look at the pattern, and offer new rewards or incentives for teachers to apply for jobs in those areas. This issue is important because life chances should not be determined by someone’s postcode or who their parents are, but in Yorkshire and Humber—and across the UK—there is clearly a hell of a long way to go.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jo Cox]

It has been an honour to lead and participate in this well-informed, passionate and compelling debate, to which Members from all parts of the House have made powerful contributions. There has been an enormous amount of consensus on many issues—not least on the tremendous contribution that headteachers and teachers make to the future of our children in Yorkshire and the Humber—and that is welcome indeed. With respect to the Minister, it is clear that we need far more detail from the Government, and far more ambition on a strategy to improve the life chances of children from Yorkshire and the Humber. Although he gave a compelling response, I do not think that his answer quite stacks up to the level of ambition for which there has been a united call this evening from all parts of the House. The action called for really must address this regional disparity. If we are serious about rebalancing our economy and ensuring that no children fall behind, we need to see more from the Government on this compelling issue.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House notes that Yorkshire and the Humber was the lowest ranked region in England in 2013-14 for educational attainment; further notes that the January 2016 report from the Social Market Foundation entitled Educational Inequality in England and Wales found that geographical inequality was the most important factor in determining students’ educational attainment; and calls on the Government to take action to address the underlying causes of these inequalities as a matter of urgency and to set out the steps it is taking to ensure that children in Yorkshire and the Humber are equally likely to achieve good school qualifications as children in London.